


no way out

by fantasticaldaydreams



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Anxiety, Bullying, Demons, Depression, Human Josh, M/M, Pining, also later on smut, demon tyler, oh wait yeah there is a suicide mention thing, the whole situations kinda explained in the first chapter dont worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:55:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 21,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5632429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasticaldaydreams/pseuds/fantasticaldaydreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tyler is a demon who really didn't want to be summoned and Josh ignores a lot of his emails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. uno

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in a long time. Please tell me if it's any good, or if you have suggestions, that sort of thing.

Josh sighed, pulling a blanket tighter around himself as he sat curled up in his desk chair. It was a shitty desk chair that he'd had a while; whatever cushioning it had had was by then squished to nothing, and the back was about to fall off, but he didn't really want to spent another hundred bucks on a nicer chair when he had a drumset to save up for.

So he sat in his chair, absentmindedly clicking around the internet when he decided to check his email. After quickly typing in his login information, he was greeted with a bunch of junk mail and something that said something along the lines of "DO NOT CLICKK!!!!!!!"

So of course he clicked it.

And of course it was a shitty chain mail message.

In fact, it wasn't even a message, just a badly edited picture of someone dressed as a stereotypical demon with some white text on top: "resend this picture to 5 other people within the next hour or else a demon will make your life a living hell and torment you until you die!!"

Josh sighed, marked the email as spam, and moved on to the next that didn't look like junk mail.

_____

Meanwhile, ten demons were arguing over who got to sit where on a couple of shitty couches in some random person's apartment. Said random person sighed happily, spinning around in his fancy desk chair a couple more times than necessary, and pointed at the demons.

"So. I summoned you guys. You gotta do what I say. And I say you track this" (he points to his computer, which was open to an email just sent to 5 people who's emails he had found randomly) "email and anyone who doesn't do as it says, you gotta torment until they die."

One of the demons groaned, and another muttered something, but none wanted to outright say anything. Even though their summoner was stupid, he wasn't stupid enough to not know how to make them obey, so the ten of them eventually settled down onto the two old couches.

"Hey," one muttered, leaning over to another with short brown hair and bright red eyes. "d'you think I could break whatever he's got tying us to him if I--"

"I can hear you talking!"

"Don't bother," the other demon whispered back, settling back into his part of the couch. They had to wait for another hour before doing anything, so might as well get comfortable. "I'm sure we can find a loophole once the hour's over."

He was met with a grumbled response, and sighed, pulling a hand over to mess with the frayed edges of his hoodie.

Somehow, an hour had managed to pass by, as the demons were interrupted from their idle ideas as to how to get out of this by an exclaimation of "it's time!" from their summoner. Surprisingly, only a couple outwardly sighed or grumbled as they all made their way to the human.

"So, uh, one of you use your demony powers to see who did or didn't forward the email."

One of the demons shrugged, and sat down at the computer, messing around a bit and to the others, it didn't look as demony as it did matrixy. "I was pretty good at this before I got killed," He said in explanation, then laughed a bit, pushing himself away from the computer. "None of them forwarded it."

The demons pretended not to hear the sound of unhappiness that arose from the human, who sighed. "Alright, fine. That's still 5 people. Uh, you five," he muttered, pointing at the red-eyed demon and the ones next to him, "choose a person and torment them until they die. The rest of you can just... go back to Hell."

The demons didn't wait a second longer, half of them disappearing to return to Hell, and the others quickly scanning the 5 email addresses and choosing one, then transporting over to wherever that person was.

One demon in particular, the one with brown hair and red eyes, glanced to where he had gone to, focusing for a second to make himself invisible to humans. "Of all the reasons I had to be pulled from Hell," he muttered, "this has got to be the worst. Tyler, what the hell did you get yourself into this time?" He sighed, then took in his surroundings.

Tyler was in a bedroom, most likely a teenager's, that contained a bunch of posters and a drumset that had most definitely seen better days, perhaps 10 years beforehand. No one else was in the room at the moment, but he assumed someone would show up sooner or later, and meanwhile made himself comfortable snooping through the person's stuff. He had to torment the person after all, and while that could mean killing all of his relatives and loved ones and perhaps skinning him, it also meant messing with him and annoying him all to hell.

And Tyler really didn't want to kill a bunch of humans right now, so he decided to be annoying, and started moving stuff around the room; little things, like a hoodie that had been strewn over a chair, and a bottle of soda. Tyler inspected the soda carefully, not recognizing it, and finding that odd since he hadn't become a demon too long ago. "Baja blast, huh?" He muttered, then sat the bottle on a pillow.

Tyler was humming to himself as he did this, and almost missed the creak as a door was being pushed open. He immediately quieted, and turned to look at the human he got to annoy for the rest of it's life.

About the same height as Tyler stood a teenage man, with brown eyes and very bright red hair. He was wearing plain pajamas, and seemed frozen, eyes slowly scanning the room, before mouthing something that looked to be something like "hat the duck" and grabbing his hoodie off the floor.

Tyler suppressed a laugh, and quietly shifted away from the bed, where the teenager was slowly moving to. He eyed the bottle of soda with an odd expression on his face, before sighing, lying down and taking a sip, and apparently deciding to sleep it off.

Tyler took this moment to scrape a blunt nail along the wall to make a soft noise, and the teenager jerked up, immediately alert again, before shaking his head and lying down again, pulling a blanket over his head.

Tyler watched for a moment longer, then quietly left the room, not caring too much that the door creaked on his way out, or that he had picked up the kid's wallet along the way. He leaned against the wall of a hallway, glancing to make sure no one else was around, and opened it; he found a school ID that displayed the name "Joshua Dun" and a picture of the same teenager, just with bright blue hair instead of red.

"So you're name's Joshua, huh?" Tyler murmured to himself, then sighed. He had hoped he would end up with someone who was about 80 years old and ready to keel over so he could get back, but no, he was stuck with some teenager who seemed in pretty good health, and he didn't particularly want to kill anyone anyway. So he was stuck.

Muttering to himself, Tyler roamed the house until he found a window, and opened it as quietly as he could, climbing out and down the side of the house, before sighing and resting in the grass of their backyard, staring blankly at the sky. It'd be a long wait until morning, and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep.

\-----

Tyler sighed as the sun started to rise, and supposed it was time to continue messing with the human. He pulled himself up off the ground, and quietly scaled the house, arriving at the window on the second floor he'd used to exit the house earlier, and made his way back to Josh's room.

He pushed open the door slowly, made sure he was still invisible, and peered into the room. Josh appeared to just be getting up, stretching a bit, and searching around for something to wear for the day. The human froze for a second, eyes trained on where he had put his wallet the night before, and Tyler cursed to himself, forgetting completely about that. He vaguely remembered leaving it lying on the ground in the hallway. Oh well, he was supposed to be annoying the person, anyway.

After a moment, Josh continued searching for an outfit, and Tyler was glancing around the room for more items to misplace before he turned back to Josh and--

Shit.

Josh had taken off his shirt, and Tyler was frozen to the spot, quickly realizing that one, his human had quite nice muscles, two, he thought his human was hot, and three, he was screwed.

Tyler quickly left the room, almost tripping over himself in his haste, and decided to take a minute to familiarize himself with the rest of the house, as roaming aimlessly until you find something is never a good idea. 


	2. dos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> welp

"Hey Josh, your bag's open,"

Tyler watched as Josh sighed dejectedly, muttering a thanks to the person behind him and zipping the bag up. Again. Tyler grinned, waited a minute, then made his way over to Josh again, quickly unzipping the bag again, and moving a pencil into a different pocket for good measure.

Josh must have felt a slight pressure on his back, because he groaned in annoyance as soon as Tyler was done, immediately pulling his backpack off and zipping it up again.

Tyler simply repeated his motions, fighting hard not to laugh as Josh stopped for a second, raising his hand as if to slap something, but he didn't know what. After a moment, Josh just sighed and continued walking, giving up on the backpack.

"Woah, Josh, is your backpack broken or something? It's open again."

"Thanks, I noticed," He muttered, and continued on, not bothering to zip up his backpack again. Tyler had a hand clamped over his mouth, fighting to keep his laughter quiet.

But now that Josh wasn't zipping up his bag anymore, Tyler needed to find another way to annoy him. He was kind of sad that messing with the bag only lasted a few minutes, but oh well.

A few minutes later, Josh was sitting in class, every pocket of his bag unzipped, and had given up his search for his favourite pencil, which he assumed must have fallen out while he made his way to class. Meanwhile, Tyler was in the back of the room, keeping invisible and twisting a pencil in his hand, searching for another way to bug the human.

Josh sighed and turned to pay attention to the teacher, who had started rambling on about some historical thing in the 1800's, when suddenly his textbook fell to the ground. He grumbled, cursing his bad luck, and bent down to pick up the textbook. As he leaned over, he felt what seemed like a hand placed on his shoulder, pushing him farther down and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled out on the floor with a headache, no closer to getting his textbook on his desk.

A moment later, a pencil rolled off and fell on his face.

"God damnit," He muttered, and could have sworn he heard a giggle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not sure where I want to go with this yet (please comment if you have any ideas) 
> 
> until then it's gonna be a bunch of blurbs because why not


	3. tres

Josh had had enough.

For the past two months, everything minorly bad that could happen to him did happen. Losing pencils, broken backpacks, falling out of desks, misplacing items in his room, torn clothes and blankets (in undesirable areas when it came to his pants, no less), pink hair dye in his shampoo, and just generally bad things all around.

He knew this was no coincidence. He knew someone was fucking with him. And he was going to find out.

He'd bought a camera on his way home from school, hoping that nothing would happen to cause it to break, but oddly enough major bad things never seemed to happen. He hoped a broken camera was more of a major nuisance than a minor one.

Josh grumbled to himself as he set the camera up in the corner of his room, setting it to record in low quality for about 3 hours; he couldn't record in high quality for that long due to memory, so he hoped whatever was fucking with him didn't need HD video to be revealed.

After setting up, Josh decided to take an extra long shower and give the culprit time to do whatever it is the thing did.   
-  
Josh roamed back into his room a couple of hours later, after spending a nice while in the shower, then talking to his family for a bit (or, really, getting scolded for using all the hot water). He noted that there wasn't too much out of place, but his hairbrush was missing, and his curtains now had a new tear in them.

But the camera was still on.

Humming in excitement at the fact that he could finally figure out what the hell was messing with him, he hurriedly connected his camera to a computer, watching as the long video slowly loaded onto his computer, and pressed play as soon as he could.

Then became very confused.

Occasionally, an object would move as if it had a mind of its own or were being carried by something he couldn't see; other times, it would disappear, then reappear in a new place. Either way, whatever was causing this to happen couldn't be caught on camera. Or perhaps they couldn't be seen at all? That would make sense, Josh was sure he would've seen whatever the thing was before now if he was able to.

As he sped through the video, not having patience to sit through 2 hours of items slowly being moved to different spots as if whatever was moving them was indecisive, he found his way at the end, and thought that was that.

"Well, great. I can't see this stupid thin--"

Josh slapped his hand forward and paused the video.

Right there, in the middle of the room, was what looked like a figure: almost entirely translucent, just barely noticeable by being a touch darker than it's surroundings, with red eyes.

After a moment of staring at the image on his computer, his face paling, he suddenly jerked forward and pressed the power button on his computer, not caring that he hadn't saved or closed anything out, and slowly turned around.

Josh didn't know what he was expecting. The thing to pop up again? Show itself to him? Kill him or some shit?

Whatever he was expecting, it didn't happen. His room appeared to be empty.

"So I have a ghost. Or a demon. Or some other equally terrifying thing. Oh. Fuck." Josh mumbled to himself, still looking through his room, hoping to spot the being. After a moment, he made a run for his bed, curling up under a blanket and trying his hardest not to freak out.

Meanwhile, Tyler sat on the floor in front of the human's dresser, still invisible, trying to decide if allowing himself to be seen slightly was a good idea. He shrugged, and got up and left, allowing the door to creak as he opened and closed it. He thought he heard a whimper of fear from the human, but didn't think on it.   
-  
Around four the next morning, Tyler returned to the human's room, sighing softly. He was bored, and his human was asleep. He vaguely thought about waking Josh up, but decided against it; freaking him out any further might have bad consequences.

Instead, he took a seat in the desk chair, watching the human's shape underneath a blanket. It looked like he'd fallen asleep, even if it was an uneasy sleep, and Tyler felt almost bad about scaring him.

He hummed to himself absentmindedly, wondering what to do next to the human that wasn't too harsh; he settled on turning off his alarm clock, and then sitting on the floor, still humming under his breath.

He must have kind of dozed, because the next thing he knew, there was more light spilling into the room from the window, Josh was groaning, and his mom was yelling at him to wake up. Tyler made sure he was still invisible, and moved himself out of the human's way as Josh suddenly shot up, scanned the room, and got dressed as fast as humanly possible.

Or perhaps a bit moreso, as Tyler reached forward to help pull the human's shirt down, instantly wondering why the hell he did that, especially since it was more helpful than annoying. Or maybe having your clothes move on their own accord is annoying? Yeah, that's it. That would be annoying. Sure. Tyler huffed, mentally reassuring himself.

The human froze for a split second, but continued getting ready, scrambling for his stuff before leaving; he didn't seem to want to be in the room any longer than necessary. Tyler sighed, debated following the human to school, and decided he would take a nap first. He didn't have to sleep as much as humans did at all, but he could sleep, and he felt like a nap.

He took the softest of the human's blankets, wrapped it around himself, and fell asleep leaning against the bed.   
-  
When Tyler woke up, it appeared to be evening. He groaned, wondering how he'd managed to sleep for so long, and then froze. What if the human had come in and seen him? Was he still invisible?

Tyler couldn't answer the first question, but Josh wasn't in his room, so hopefully not. The second one was a resounding no. He must have forgotten to keep himself invisible when he slept. Tyler hoped the human was at a friend's or something.

He left the blanket where it was, idly wondering if he should just steal it completely (it was very warm), but decided against it, as he didn't really have anywhere to put it.

"Mom, I'm home!" Tyler heard, and sighed in relief. The human hadn't seen him. Good. Tyler glanced around, placed one book in a different spot, then sat down on the floor and waited.

A few minutes later, Tyler watched as Josh walked into the room, thumping his backpack onto the floor and staring at the blanket next to his bed. He sighed, picked it up, and threw it back onto the bed, shaking his head a little as he did so, then left; probably to eat dinner or something.

Tyler huffed. He'd only been here a couple of months and already he felt bad about having to do this to the kid.  
-  
Josh seemed oddly calm that night, going about his normal business and even using his computer. Tyler had assumed it would take at least a week for Josh to stop frantically twisting around to see if the demon was around, and even longer to look at the computer again, but Josh seemed perfectly fine. He even went to bed and fell asleep at a reasonable time.

Tyler watched thoughtfully, then tugged on the human's blanket, just once, to annoy him. Josh froze for a second, then curled tighter. Huh. Maybe he'd just come to terms with having a demon annoying him really quickly.

Tyler shrugged, pushing the thoughts aside, and left to roam the city for a while. He was getting bored being cooped up in the house.

He didn't notice that the human didn't flinch when the door creaked closed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo I finally figured out kind of where I'm going with this, but because I like moving things along too fast, I havent had too much time to show ty being the annoying demon he has to be. 
> 
> so some chapters will be chronological, and some will just be blurbs of tyler being an annoying demon. it'll say so at the top of each chapter, dont worry. 
> 
> if there's any spelling or grammar issues pls tell me.


	4. cuatro

Josh sighed, flopping onto the bed heavily, ignoring the creak of protest that arose from it. It had been a long day, complete with missing pencils (again) and an English exam he's sure he failed. He idly hoped he hadn't, but judging from the teacher's reaction to skimming it when he turned it in, he knew he was done for.

 

(He didn't know that Tyler, still feeling kind of bad about the whole scare-video-thing, had grabbed the paper once the teacher wasn't paying attention to it and fixed the answers, enough that Josh would get a C. Tyler had told himself that having someone else mess with your answers was always annoying, surely, even if it did lead to a better grade. Totally.)

 

He avoided thinking about whatever it was that was messing with him, and instead rolled over, pulling his soft blanket over his head. He noticed that it was almost always in a different spot when he left it for more than an hour, and even when he fell asleep with it, it was sometimes missing when he woke up.

 

He shook the thoughts away; he didn't want to think about the thing messing with him right then. He was too tired to try and figure it out.

 

He idly thought he would like to practice drumming, but he'd have to go to the music store; he hadn't been there in a long time, sadly, but he was too tired to go right then. Josh was also worried that the being messing with him would break the drumset or something. He sighed, taking a deep breath and freezing for a moment.

 

It smelled slightly like a campfire.

 

He took another expiremental sniff, and yes, it did smell like a campfire, faintly. He didn't know where it was coming from, unless--

 

He grabbed a fistful of the blanket, taking a deep breath. Yep, the blanket smelled like fire.

 

Josh blinked. Did the being or whatever was messing with him actually use this blanket? Was this what it smelled like?

 

Josh wondered about that for a moment longer, but decided he was too tired to think on it, and instead just clutched the blanket tighter to himself, refusing to acknowledge that the scent calmed him slightly as he slept.

 

\--

 

Tyler made sure he was invisible, made sure the electric razor wasn't too loud, and made sure his laughs weren't going to be louder than the razor, before making his way into the human's room. It'd been a couple months after the video incident, and the human seemed to have gotten used to having bad luck, so Tyler needed to step it up a notch.

 

He paused, watching the human's sleeping form, chest steadily rising and falling under a blanket. He was lying on his back, face up, which was good for what Tyler had in mind. He quietly made his way over to the boy, and flicked on the razor, pausing to see if the human woke up from the sound, and when he didn't, went in for the first cut.

 

Of course, Tyler wasn't heartless, which someone could expect from a demon, he supposed. He saw how much the human cared for his hair, always dying it and keeping it trimmed well enough. Tyler was just... going to make it look nicer, that's all. He had no intention to shave it all off.

 

After the first cut, Tyler paused again to make sure the human was still asleep, then went in for the next. Slowly but surely, he had formed a mohawk, kind of. He still needed to shave the back of the human's head, but the human wouldn't take kindly to being rolled over in order to do so.

 

Tyler stopped, wondering what to do next, when he heard a beeping sound and realized what time it was. Quickly, he turned off the razor, dropped it on the bed next to Josh, and walked to a corner, making sure he was invisible. He'd slacked off when cutting the boy's hair, and knew if he'd woken up, the demon would've been seen. Not that his eyes hadn't been seen already, but he had no intention to fully revealing himself to the human.

 

He watched as Josh groaned, turning off the alarm and running his hands through his hair, freezing as he felt the sides of his head. He glanced around, obviously seeing the chunks of hair and electric razor, before swiftly getting up and standing in front of the mirror, a look of pure horror on his face.

 

Tyler almost giggled at the sight, especially because Josh still had hair on the back of his head unshaved.

 

"What the hell?" Tyler heard, and had to bite into his hand to keep from laughing.

 

The human's face morphed from horror into curiousity, tugging on his hair in front and turning his head to see the back, wincing a bit at the unfinished cut. "Whatever the fuck you are, you could've at least finished buzzing it," He muttered.

 

Tyler blinked. It wasn't that he was surprised the human had figured out there was a being doing all this to him-- that was obvious two months ago when he had allowed his eyes to be caught on camera-- but the human never actually said anything to him before now. Tyler assumed that the human was pretending there wasn't a supernatural being messing with him.

 

Tyler watched curiously as Josh walked over to the razor, picked it up, and flicked it back on, running his hands through his hair on the back of his head and sighing. "I might as well finish it myself," He murmured, slowly bringing the razor to the hair near his ear, wincing a little as he caught his ear. His hands were nowhere near steady enough to do this.

 

Tyler watched a moment longer, then grinned, and strode forward, pulling the razor out of the human's grasp. Josh froze for a moment, eyes wide and obviously thinking about how many ways there was to kill someone with an electric razor, but didn't move as Tyler swiftly finished cutting the boy's hair, admiring it a little once he had finished, and sat the razor down. He wondered how that had looked to the human. Did the razor just float in the air, or did it disappear with him?

 

Tyler almost laughed at the thought of having a floating razor flying near his head, and backed away quickly, again making sure he was invisible. He took the time to note that the hairstyle looked good on Josh; but then, he'd come to terms with the fact that Josh looked good pretty much no matter what.

 

Josh, meanwhile, was once again tugging on his hair, brushing his shoulders off, and just generally trying to come to terms with the new style as he tilted his head at odd angles.

 

What Tyler couldn't see was that Josh kind of liked his new hairstyle, though he figured he'd like it more if he'd had a choice in the matter. The human smiled to himself for a moment.

 

"Thanks, uh, whatever you are." Josh said quietly, to the demon's surprise, and quickly grabbed his clothes and went to take a shower, leaving Tyler alone to think about the human's reaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> movin along wayyyyy too fast. gotta slow down. gotta add more annoying tyler. 
> 
> next chapter should be more tyler just bein annoying, taking place before the camera incident thingy 
> 
> please comment if there are any issues with this


	5. cinco

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this takes place before the camera incident, just so you know; i wanted to disperse some tyler being annoying through the entire thing, cause after the next few plot-related chapters things change a bit, as they have to. SO if you have any more ideas for how tyler could be annoying, please leave them in the comments, it’ll probably be like a prompt thing in the middle of a story. i’ll make it work.

Josh sighed to himself, flopping onto the bed after coming home from a rough day at school. He’d had a math exam earlier, and knew he’d failed it, and probably would have without something trying to fling his pencil and eraser across the room every few minutes. 

 

_ If I could figure out what the hell is causing this…  _ Josh closed his eyes, letting his mind wander along that train of thought, ignoring the too-real possibility of having a ghost or something just as bad following him around. 

 

As he was pondering his life at the moment, the door slowly creaked open. 

 

Normally Josh wouldn’t mind this, but his siblings had just gotten home and were being pretty loud. He groaned, and slowly rolled off the bed to go close his door. Just as he’d gotten comfy on the bed again, the door slid open once more.

 

Josh huffed, staring angrily at the door, before going to close it once again. He thought he heard a giggle, but doubted it. 

 

Just as he’d rolled back into his bed, trying to cocoon himself in his blankets, he heard the familiar sound of a door creaking open. 

 

“Oh, what the fuck,” He muttered, angrily huffing as he slammed his door shut, and paused for a moment. He thought he caught a whiff of something burning. 

 

Josh’s brows furrowed, and with one hand still holding the door closed, he glanced around, making sure nothing was burning. The scent went away. 

 

He started to move back to his bed, and this time didn’t even make it all the way to the bed before the door creaked again. He swiftly turned around and rushed towards the door, putting a bit too much force behind closing it. He heard a muffled yell of his mom telling him to be quiet. He didn’t, however, hear the squeak of surprise as Tyler jumped out of the way of a raging Josh. 

 

Josh grumbled to himself, and went back to the bed. The door didn’t open again until he was fast asleep. He thought he could hear the creak in whatever dream he was having. 

 

Tyler giggled as he watched Josh’s sleeping form mutter angry almost-words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry that it took so long to update, by the way. i may have kept forgetting. every day. whoops.


	6. seis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back to plot related stuffs! This takes place after chapter… 4? The haircutting chapter. Just in case anyone’s confused.

Tyler had decided against following Josh to his school today, instead trying to figure out what Josh had meant. Obviously Josh knew he existed, and had come to terms with it, even if he did freeze up whenever Tyler did something he could see. He didn't freak out about it.

 

And he'd said thank you. 

 

What baffled Tyler the most was that all he had done was annoy the human. Maybe he'd help the human sometimes with little things, but surely the annoyances and head-shaving and stuff easily outweighed that? Maybe Josh was seeing something else. 

 

Tyler sighed, staring down at his hands, black with what looked like tar, but would never come off. 

-

Around noon, Tyler had decided he was done trying to figure out what Josh had meant, and also done with being bored and sitting his room. He made his way to the school, invisible but walking. He could teleport, but he decided against it. 

 

When he arrived at the school, it was lunchtime, and kids were running all over the place. He caught a whiff of cigarette smoke as he passed a group of kids on the edge of school grounds. He wondered idly where Josh was, when he heard people shouting more than normal. 

 

"The fuck did you do with your hair? You look like a fuckin' faggot," He heard specifically, and was able to make out words that led to similar statements, and some shouts of pain. 

 

That was Josh's voice.

 

They were hurting Josh. 

 

Tyler froze, first trying to decide if he should help the human or not, then trying to figure out why he wanted to protect his human in the first place. He was supposed to torment Josh, not help him. He had no reason to stop the bullies. 

 

Regardless, once Tyler found the human (on the ground, getting kicked in the side, next to a building where the security cameras weren't working), he reacted without thinking, tugging just enough on a bully's jacket to make him turn around, and then moved to pull another's' phone out of his pocket. By this point, the bullies had stopped focusing on Josh, more interested in what was messing with them. 

 

Tyler took a moment to smack one of them on the back of their head, and then helped Josh to his feet; it took most of his self-control not to genuinely hurt the bullies, but that would blow his cover for sure; humans getting beaten up by an invisible being never looked good, and if they blamed it on Josh, well. 

 

Tyler huffed, allowing his human to lean on him while leading them back home. There was no way Josh could stay at school; Tyler mused that the human would be very lucky if he didn't have a broken rib from this experience. The human needed a day to rest. 

 

Tyler pondered as they made their way home; the human didn't seem to be freaked out by the fact that there was an invisible person leading him home at all; rather, Josh was almost clinging to the demon's arm with one of his hands, and a quick glance over showed that Josh's eyes were just barely open, focused on the ground in front of him. If Tyler wanted to, he could lead Josh somewhere entirely different, and he wouldn't even notice. 

 

The human, for some reason Tyler couldn't fathom, trusted him. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small chapter, i know, next one will be long tho. it'll be good. promise.


	7. siete

Tyler had dropped his human off in the bed, leaving him in order to search for a first aid kit. He knew it was around here somewhere; Josh's mother had used it before on his younger sister. Tyler muttered unhappily to himself as he searched, finally finding it in a cabinet with cleaning supplies. 

 

When he returned to the human's room, he found Josh curled up on the bed, the blanket Tyler regularly stole wrapped around him. He was shaking slightly, taking in shaky breaths as Tyler watched, running a hand over his head. 

 

The demon stood in the doorway, still invisible, deliberating whether he should comfort the human or not. Well, surely having something you can't see comforting you is annoying. Surely. Totally. He was running out of excuses, but he had an excuse, so he quickly walked over to the human and sat on the bed next to him, wrapping an arm around him.

 

Josh froze, seemingly forgetting to breathe. Tyler watched as the human raised a hand towards the general direction of Tyler, stopping when it landed on his chest. The human remained like that for a while. 

 

_ Shit, I broke him. He's probably gonna flip out, 'cause he can't see me, or anything, shit, I didn't mean to scare him like this I just wanted to comfort him a little bit I know I was meant to torment him but _ \--

 

Tyler's thoughts were interrupted when the human suddenly shifted towards Tyler, clutching his hoodie in his hand, burying his face in the demon's shoulder once he found it. Tyler remained frozen for a moment, watching the human just fall to pieces, clinging onto Tyler like his lifeline. 

 

Tyler took a deep breath, then shifted a little to get a bit more comfortable, reaching behind the human to pull the blanket up over them. The two remained in that position for some time, Tyler rubbing his hand in a comforting circle, letting the human cry into his shoulder, until Josh sniffed and started pulling away. 

 

"It's kinda weird sobbing into someone I can't see," Tyler heard Josh say, his words muffled slightly. 

 

Tyler didn't respond.

 

"You don't have to hide from me or whatever, though," Josh continued. "I've already seen you. After the video thing, you were asleep next to my bed."

 

Tyler froze. The human had seen him? Shit.  _ Shit. My cover's blown. Very blown. What if he tells someone? Has anyone else seen me? No, I made sure no one could see me and connect who I am. And only Josh knows I exist anyway. But. _

 

"I won't tell anyone about you, don't worry," Josh said quietly, and Tyler relaxed a little. 

 

Josh huffed a little, and shifted into a more comfortable position, still leaning on the demon. "You're still gonna stay invisible, aren't you?" He asked. 

 

Tyler still remained silent, just watching the human. It explained a couple things; how Josh had calmed down after the video-incident and how he never got truly scared after that. But it didn't explain the thank you. 

 

Tyler sighed, and let himself be visible; he never realizes until he stops being invisible, but it does take a toll on him, takes up more energy than he would like. "Why did you say thank you, earlier?" The demon asked quietly, somewhat surprised at the sound of his own voice. He hadn't really spoken to anyone in almost four months. Damn.

 

He's been with this human for almost four months. 

 

He was shaken out of his thoughts when Josh replied. "I knew I wasn't alone."

 

Tyler's brows furrowed. "Alone?"

 

"Mhm." Josh took a deep breath before continuing. "I only have a few friends at school and none of them are very close, close enough to protect me from the bullies. But since I saw you I knew you'd always be here, or nearby, so it helped a lot."

 

Tyler couldn't think of a way to reply. 

 

"So what are you, anyway?" Josh asked, tilting his head up to look Tyler in the face. "And why are you here?" 

 

Tyler grumbled for a moment. "I'm a demon," He said eventually, watching Josh's face contort into surprise and slight fear, before going back to curiosity.  _ He handled that information better than I thought, I guess. _ "Some stupid human summoned me to--" Tyler held up a hand to make air quotes, "'torment anyone who doesn't forward an email within the time limit.'" 

 

Josh watched Tyler for a moment longer, then started laughing, turning away as his body shook. "Did a chain mail message seriously work? Oh, man," Josh froze for a second, hand flying to his side, and fought away his laughter. 

 

Tyler grinned a little, half because the situation was pretty funny, and half because the human had a wonderful laugh. "Yeah," He said, laughing a little himself. Josh glanced up at him, smiling. 

 

"So I'm stuck with you?"

 

"Yep."

 

Josh hummed. "I'm glad," He said, eventually. 

 

How shitty must a situation be that some human is glad they have a demon tormenting them? Tyler wondered. "I still have to annoy you, though."

 

"Annoying doesn't really equal tormenting," Josh mused. 

 

"I didn't feel like actually tormenting you. That'd require a lot more death, specifically of your loved ones, and probably some torture."

 

"Oh."

 

The two fell into a comfortable silence, Josh eventually sitting upright again, his shoulder pressed against the demon's, blanket wrapped around them. 

 

"What should I call you?" Josh asked after a while. 

 

"I guess Tyler works."

 

"That's not a very demonic name," Josh said, smiling a little. 

 

Tyler shrugged, and noticed the first aid kit on the other side of the room. He'd completely forgotten about it, and about the human's injuries. 

 

Josh must have followed his gaze, because Tyler heard a mumbled 'oh yeah'. 

 

"I should probably see if I can fix you up a bit," Tyler said after a moment, eyes still fixed on the first aid kit. 

 

"Okay." He heard from Josh.

 

Tyler stayed there a moment longer, then sighed. "I really don't want to get up, though. This blanket's really warm."

 

Josh laughed a little. "Why didn't you ever steal it?"

 

"I have nowhere to put it." Tyler said, and slowly rose from his position, grabbing the first aid kit. 

 

"Oh," Josh said, and winced as Tyler grabbed his arm, examining it. 

 

"You're arm's bruised but it should be fine," The demon said, then paused. "Do, uh, you want me to see how your chest is doing, or," He trailed off. 

 

"If you could," Josh murmured, lying on the bed so that his left side (which had the most bruising) was facing up, leaving Tyler to pull his shirt up. 

 

If the demon was worried about any sort of awkward still-can't-get-over-the-fact-that-the-human-is-hot feelings, he wasn't anymore, as he stared at the large bruise on Josh's side. "Oh, fuck," Tyler murmured, and went to work putting some neosporin on the areas where skin broke, trying in vain not to press too hard on the bruise. 

 

Eventually, he deemed the area had been disinfected. "If there was a way to numb that I would," He murmured, before digging around for some painkillers in the kit. "Here," He said, handing the bottle to Josh after the human had sat back up, wincing as he pulled his shirt back down. "This should help a little," 

 

"Thanks," Josh said, smiling at the demon. "You know, for a demon you're awfully helpful." 

 

"Demon's aren't necessarily heartless, evil creatures, y'know." Tyler said, scratching his neck a little. 

 

"Do all demons look like you do?" 

 

Tyler blinked in confusion. "Like I do?"

 

"Yeah, with red eyes and black... is it just on your neck and hands?"

 

"Oh. No, demons vary in looks quite a lot. I just got lucky and look like a human, for the most part. And, yeah, it's just there," Tyler said, voice having grown quieter over his reply, eyes falling back down to his hands. 

 

The two were again silent, and eventually Tyler made his way over to sit next to Josh again, the human pulling their blanket up over them again. 

 

Tyler wasn't sure how, but he realized a few hours later that they must have dozed off, since Josh was still asleep on his shoulder, neck bent in a way that was most definitely not comfortable. Gingerly, Tyler moved so that the two of them were lying down, and Josh's neck wasn't bent so painfully. 

 

Tyler watched Josh for a while afterwards; he must be exhausted, because he didn't even wake up when Tyler moved him, simply subconsciously curled in closer to the demon. 

 

Tyler smiled a little, resting an arm over his human's side, pulling him closer. 

 

This would totally be annoying. Obviously. Having a demon cuddle you. Yeah. 

 

He didn't notice when he fell asleep. 

 

Josh's mom opened the door, peeking in and seeing the extra person. Wordlessly, she shut the door; Josh could explain later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO this chapter was kind of oddly written, im sorry, i wrote it at first before i even had the first chapter really written, then i went back and edited it because i realized that tyler never actually helped josh out with the first aid kit, then i forgot i edited for that so tried to edit it towards that AGAIN then realized i already did and after that i just gave up on this chapter
> 
> also very dialoguey sorry, if you cant tell i love dialogue, i'd probably make an entire fic just on dialogue nothing else
> 
> actually i might do that
> 
> if you have ideas for that leave it in the comments
> 
> (also dont forget i have a crappy tumblr set up for this ao3 account so if you have a request or something you can drop it off there, links in my profile bio)


	8. ocho

"I think my parents think I'm going insane, talking to someone who doesn't exist." Josh said, slipping his arm into a sleeve of his hoodie. His mom had been giving him weird looks ever since he’d first ‘met’ Tyler, and he could only assume she’d heard them talking. He hoped she didn’t plan on sending him to a psychiatrist. 

 

"I'm pretty sure I exist, Josh,"

 

Josh laughed, pulling on his hoodie. "You know what I mean. If I told them I had a demon following me around everywhere, they'd probably freak out way more than if you didn't exist, anyway."

 

Tyler shrugged, flopping onto the human's bed. "I don't follow you everywhere, anyway. Just most places. I let you go into the bathroom on your own."

 

Josh glanced back at Tyler, an odd look on his face. "I don't exactly remember when you first showed up, but I know when I first realized there must have been a thing messing with me, I stopped jacking off in here. You didn't see me doing that before I realized, did you?"

 

Tyler was silent for a moment, debating between lying and saying he hadn't seen anything or telling the truth. Before he could decide, Josh groaned, and Tyler guessed his silence was enough of an answer. 

 

"Sorry, bro," Tyler said. "If it helps, I left as soon as I noticed what you were doing." 

 

Josh groaned again, hiding his face. 

 

After a moment, he looked up. "Where do you even go, anyway? Sometimes you just disappear for hours on end, what's up with that?"

 

"I roam the city. At first, actually, I just roamed your house a lot, but I got bored and just started roaming even further. I don't think it's possible for me to get lost, so."

 

"You can't get lost...?"

 

"I can just teleport back. Demony stuff."

 

Josh stared at Tyler for a minute. "You can fucking teleport."

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I can. Demony stuff, as I said. Comes with a lot of perks."

 

Josh watched Tyler a moment longer, but then his mother called for him to get ready for school, and he sighed, slowly getting up from where he'd sat down on his bed next to Tyler. 

 

"If it's any consolation, at least it's Friday." Tyler said, and turned invisible, getting ready to follow his human to school. 

 

Josh smiled at Tyler, then turned to leave. Tyler never got over how Josh seemed to know generally where he was at all times, even when invisible. Within a week after the big reveal, as he called it in his mind, Josh was a pro at finding Tyler when he was invisible. He'd even managed to smack the demon's hand once when he was reaching for one of Josh's pencils at school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its so short, just a lil filler chapter, but life's being really time consuming. 
> 
> as always, please comment or kudos or w/e


	9. nueve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is another non-linear chapter of annoying ty; thank google for the idea. (I looked up how to annoy people. found a website with like 180 different ways. also good for lil oneshots if anyone needs ideas)

Josh hummed happily, grabbing at his bag of Doritos and the TV remote. His parents were out of town for the night, and his siblings were all staying at their friends’ homes; his parents were hoping he’d stay somewhere else too, since they worried about leaving him alone for the night, but he decided he wanted to stay at the house and have complete control over the TV for the night. 

 

Nodding slightly to himself, he settled back into the couch and turned on the TV, flicking through the various channels before finding a movie channel playing Captain America. Again. He idly thought about counting the amount of times he’d seen parts of this movie before, but decided against it as he watched. 

 

He froze a little when it felt like the couch dipped in beside him, but when he looked over, nothing was there. The couch looked slightly dented, but that was where most people sat; it was probably permanently dented in the shape of a butt. He shrugged slightly and turned back to the movie, smiling as Nick Fury yelled angrily at his car. 

 

As he popped a dorito in his mouth, the channel changed. 

 

Josh made a noise of distress, chewing on his Dorito while reaching over for the remote; it was where he left it, so no one had touched it, he didn’t think. He changed the channel back, holding the remote lightly in one hand in case it happened again. 

 

He thought he felt the couch shift again, and something just barely brush his arm; he glanced to the side wildly, but nothing was there. 

 

Then the channel changed again. 

 

Josh huffed.  _ This past month, what the hell. Everything’s been as annoying as it possibly could be. _ He grumbled a little, switching the channel back before holding the remote closer to himself. 

 

For about an hour, nothing else happened, other than he seemed to be missing some Doritos; he didn’t think too hard on that, and watched intently as the movie drew to an end. 

 

Then the TV shut off. 

 

Groaning, Josh sighed and got up, giving up on the TV entirely. Just as he turned around, he heard the sound of it turning back on, and glanced back to see if he could still finish his movie. 

 

“ _ This vibrating wand will give you--” _

 

Josh very quickly grabbed the remote and shut off the TV again, having very little desire to look at an infomercial about vibrators. 

  
He ignored the sound of the infomercial as he wandered back to his room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter'll be fun. dont worry. please leave kudos or comments or w/e if you like this/have ideas for this


	10. diez

"Josh, honey, come over here." 

 

Josh paused, having just gotten home from school. He vaguely wondered what his mother wanted; was it about the bullying incident? Thanks to Tyler, there hadn't been too many issues with that. Was it about him talking to Tyler in his room? 

 

"Josh." 

 

Josh sighed, felt a comforting hand placed on his shoulder, and made his way over to the couch where his mother was. "Yes?"

 

"Is there anything you need to tell me?"

 

Josh stared at his mom. She had an odd look on her face, not angry but still worrying.  _ What's she talking about? Is it the bullying? Is it Tyler? Does she think I'm going insane talking to him up in my room? _

 

Josh continued to stare at his mom, mind going through every possible thing his mom was trying to get him to talk about. "...What?" He eventually sputtered out. 

 

"Josh, you can tell me anything. You know that."

 

Josh continued to stare at his mom. What the hell is she talking about?

 

She sighed. "The other day I checked up on you in your room, and there was someone else there with you. Another boy."

 

Josh paled. She had seen Tyler? Did she know what he was? Was she going to try and get rid of him?

 

"Now, Josh, I've told you there's nothing wrong with being gay, I just wish you would've told me before having another boy here. And I'd like to meet him."

 

Josh was frozen still. He vaguely noticed there was a tightened grip on his shoulder; obviously Tyler was just as scared as he was.

 

"I, uh, sorry I didn't tell you," Josh said quietly, praying he didn't sound as confused and scared as he really was. He wished he could get his mom to stop giving him that slightly disappointed searching look. "Uh. I wasn't-- wasn't sure how you'd react."

 

He hoped that answer sounded convincing enough, seeing as he didn't think he was gay, and definitely wasn't actually dating the demon. 

 

His mom's face melted into one of worry. "Oh, Joshie, I don't care; you're still you." She reached over to pull her son into a hug, and Josh felt the grip on his shoulder release as Tyler let go of him. "But I'm serious, I want to meet this boy. What's his name? Does he go to school with you?"

 

Josh pulled away, staring at his hands, trying to think quickly. What the hell was he supposed to tell his mom? Tyler was a demon, he didn't go to school. Josh wasn't even sure if Tyler was his real name. Didn't demons have special names or something? 

 

"Uh," Josh said articulately. "His name is Tyler, and yeah, he's another student," He said, and felt a hand placed on his shoulder briefly. 

 

"Bring him over sometime, Joshie! Not just to hide in your room."

 

"Uh, yeah, sure, I'll see if he can come over soon," Josh said. "Can I go now? I, uh, have homework."

 

Josh's mom watched him for a moment, and Josh knew by the look in her eyes that she didn't believe him, and knew this wasn't the full story.  _ It's not the story at all, _ Josh thought, groaning internally. How the hell was he going to make this work?

 

Eventually his mom nodded, and he rushed upstairs, slamming his door closed once he got into his room. 

 

"Ty, how the hell is this gonna work? She thinks you're a human! She thinks we're dating! And what the hell must she think about your eyes?! Ty, what were you thinking?"

 

Tyler watched as Josh continued slightly freaking out. After a moment, Tyler grabbed him by the arm, pulling him into a hug. "We'll figure it out, don't worry about it. As long as she doesn't find out what I am, we're fine."

 

Josh groaned, flopping onto the bed. "She thinks you go to my school."

 

"Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if I did."

 

Josh glanced up at him quickly. There was no joking look in the demon's red eyes. "What?"

 

"If I were there, it'd be easier to keep the bullies off of you, as well as offer an explanation to your mom. But I'd need some coloured contacts. And something to cover this," He said, running his hands over his neck as he sat down next to Josh. 

 

They were silent for a minute, Tyler staring into space while wringing his hands, trying to figure out a good way to hide the tar-like substance. Gloves would work for his hands, but a scarf wouldn't be able to cover his neck completely--

 

He was jerked out of his thoughts when he felt a hand that wasn't his touch his neck. He quickly turned to look at Josh, who blinked at him. "Uh, sorry, I was just curious if it came off at all," He said, retracting his hand. 

 

Tyler sighed. "No, thank god, it doesn't. Well, I mean, I wish it did, but it's also good that it doesn't spread all over the place, that'd get annoying very quickly," 

 

Josh nodded, then looked down at his own hands. "We can figure this out," He said quietly. 

 

Tyler was silent for a while. "This means I have to pretend to be a human."

 

"Mhm."

 

He hummed for a moment. "Does this mean eating like a human?"

 

"Probably, since my mom likes inviting people over for dinner a lot."

 

"Demons don't need to eat nearly as much as humans," Tyler said, groaning. "This is gonna suck."

 

"Out of all the horrible parts of this situation, eating more than usual is what's gonna suck the most to you?"

 

"Maybe."

 

"I'm more worried about pretending to be boyfriends!" 

 

Tyler watched curiously as Josh flopped onto the bed next to him, groaning in distress, before grabbing their shared blanket and pulling it over himself. "Josh, cocooning yourself isn't going to fix this." He said quietly. 

 

"I don't care."

 

Tyler watched a moment longer, then grinned. "So does this mean I get to call you Joshie now?"

 

Josh groaned again. "Please don't. I don't need to be thinking about my mom's worry-face whenever you talk to me."

 

"But Joshieeee," Tyler whined, still grinning, lying down next to Josh. 

 

"No." 

 

"Hmph." 

 

"How the hell are we supposed to act like a couple, anyway?" He heard Josh murmur. 

 

"Copy whatever couples normally do in situations?"

 

Tyler glanced over to see Josh glaring at him half-heartedly. 

 

Tyler shrugged the best he could while lying down, watching the ceiling for a while before grinning. He grabbed Josh by the blanket and rolled him over, piling the rest of the human's bedding on top of him. "You're buried now."

 

"I'm not sure this is what couples do in bed," Tyler heard, though it sounded muffled through the bedding. 

 

Tyler laughed as Josh unraveled himself from the bedding, sitting up and rolling his eyes. "So," Tyler said quietly. "Do you want to do what couples normally do in bed?"

 

The effect was immediate. Josh turned a bright red, frozen to the spot, mouth moving to attempt to speak but no words coming out.

 

He looked adorable.

 

Tyler scolded himself for thinking that, and laughed. "Kidding, don't worry."

 

Josh frowned, and threw a pillow at Tyler, smacking him in the face with it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for lateish update, again, been busy with life. It's gettin done tho. promise.


	11. once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for slow updates. again. whoops.
> 
> currently changing a few things in what i've got in store, cause i got a good idea about something.
> 
> anyways. this isn't plot-related or anything, and not timed in a linear thingy. you guys know how it is by now.

Josh mumbled to himself quietly, sifting through the shirts in his closet. He had to give some sort of presentation on a poem in his English class that day, so he wanted to wear something slightly nicer than normal, since everyone would be staring at him. Probably judging him more on what he looked like than what he put into the powerpoint presentation. He knew that was what he did; he didn’t care what people said, he just wanted the presentations to be over.

 

His hands found the sleeve of a nice white shirt; it had a simple patterned image on the front, and was pretty nice. He nodded to himself, and pulled it out, slipping it over his head before searching for some socks. 

 

He felt something hit his side as he searched in a drawer for some socks, and hummed in confusion as he glanced down. A piece of a pen? What the hell? He hadn’t broken any pens lately. At least, not by his own fault; he’d had the worst of luck the past couple of weeks. 

 

Then he glanced at his side, and groaned in frustration. All over his nice white shirt, and the light grey patterns on front, was a large splatter of black ink from the pen piece. Some had even splattered on his arm, and while it looked kind of cool, his shirt was forever fucked up. He doubted he could even wash it, the ink would just spread and make it all a nasty grey. 

 

Groaning, he pulled the shirt off, using it to wipe the ink off his arm, and tossed it to the side. He ended up wearing a black shirt, not wanting to risk messing up yet another nice shirt, and left the room dejectedly. 

 

Unbeknownst to Josh, Tyler was still in his room. The demon hummed to himself a little, reaching down and grabbing the shirt he’d messed up; it actually looked cool, with the ink splattered over the side. He slipped it onto himself, ignoring the fact that it was slightly baggy, and smiled. He’d needed something new to wear for a while; his clothes didn’t get dirty or anything, but he got bored over time. 

 

He rubbed at the black substance on his hands a little bit before going out to follow Josh. 

-

Josh reached into his backpack, hoping to find a pencil buried deep in there somewhere. All of his had gone missing so long ago; he wondered if he’d need to ask the kid sitting next to him if he had an extra. 

 

Josh’s hand found something that felt like a pencil. or at least, was the right thickness; he smiled to himself, and pulled it out, and…

 

It was a stick. 

 

Josh sighed, shoving the stick back in his backpack, deciding to ignore the confused thoughts as to how it got there in the first place. 

-

“Hey, Josh, you got some extra paper?” 

 

“Yeah, hang on,” Josh said, reaching down to grab his binder to get some paper out. Only, before his hand met the binder, it met something else. 

 

Brows furrowed in confusion, Josh pulled out a large stone. 

 

It was a nice stone, pretty smooth, and looked like it had some quartz going through it. 

 

But that didn’t explain why it was in his backpack. 

 

“Is that a rock…?” The kid next to Josh asked, and Josh nodded silently in reply. After a moment, he set it down on his desk, then reached in to grab a piece of paper, eventually handing some to the kid. He stared curiously at the rock for a bit longer, then shoved it back in his bag. A little later that day, he stuck it on his desk in his room; no matter how it got there, it was a cool rock, and deserved a spot on his desk to sit and become dusty. 

-

“Oh, what the hell?” Josh muttered, ignoring a disapproving sound from the teacher, as he pulled out a large stick, still filled with leaves that have started to crumble. 

 

He sighed, sitting it on his desk, deciding to throw it away after class ended. 

 

When he wasn’t paying attention, the branch moved towards his backpack, like it was being shifted over. Josh caught the movement in his peripheral vision, but pretended to ignore it; after seeing the being that’d been causing him so many issues lately, he’d been getting more confident, snatching items away when he thought they’d move or randomly reaching out in case the being was near. 

 

He ignored thinking about how cute it looked when it was sleeping, curled up in his softest blanket. 

 

He watched as the branch shifted even more, then stopped for a moment; then it shifted again, and Josh quickly brought a hand down to slap at the hand moving the branch. He thought he heard a squeak of surprise, and just barely felt his hand brush someone else’s; smiling in satisfaction, he moved the branch back to where it was, noting that nothing went wrong for the rest of the class period. 

 

Then, out in the hall, a large leaf somehow got tucked into his hair. He sighed, swatting at it until it fell out, and walked faster so as to avoid another leaf. 

 


	12. doce

Tyler was very, very happy that he was good at coming up with aliases. 

 

He hummed happily to himself as he looked over the paperwork in front of him, detailing out his name, address, and just about every other bit of unnecessary information the school needed to think they knew about him. He’d used someone named Mark’s address; Josh said that there were a few homeless kids, or kids who’d been kicked out, who used the address for school related mail; Mark never seemed to mind the larger amounts of mail he received. 

 

That’s what Josh said, at least. 

 

The demon shrugged to himself as he continued making sure the paperwork was correct. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure why he was doing this. He can torment Josh just as well outside of school. He has no need to do this at all. 

 

But Josh would be safer if Tyler can be with him at school. 

 

Tyler shoved his thoughts about Josh to the side; he didn’t need to think about that at the moment. Right now, he needed to figure out how he was going to make his schedule the same as Josh’s. 

 

Maybe he could influence the counselor or something. 

 

Sighing, Tyler sat up from his odd sitting position next to the bed, stretching a little; his back had been bent weird for too long while he’d hunched over those papers. He let out a little sigh, then turned to see Josh asleep on the bed. 

 

Tyler blinked, noticing his human was pretty much dead to the world, curled up around a pillow and snoring slightly. A glance at the alarm clock next to him told Tyler it was almost three in the morning. He groaned internally, cursing himself for forgetting about the time; since he didn’t need to sleep as much, it was hard to adhere to the schedule most humans held. He’d tried for a bit, but it really didn’t work; it was easier to just take naps when he felt like it. 

 

Tyler slowly sat his papers down on the bedstand, face down in case someone else came in and saw them, and sat down on the edge of the bed, contemplating whether to lie down next to Josh or not. A part of him did want to sleep for a little bit, but he didn’t want to wake up Josh, who looked so peaceful and cute sleeping there--

 

Cute?

 

Fuck. 

 

Tyler shook his head slightly, and got up from the bed. Or, tried to, anyway; Josh had woken up slightly, and reached to grab at Tyler’s hoodie when he’d moved to leave. Tyler suspected Josh was just going to fall back asleep in a few seconds, as his eyes were already falling shut again. 

 

But Josh tugged on the hoodie just slightly, and Tyler gave in, crawling into bed next to Josh, wrapping an arm around his side. He heard a content sigh from the human, before his snores resumed. 

 

Tyler smiled slightly before falling asleep himself.

 

\--

 

“Hey, Ty, it’s your first day of school,” Josh said excitedly, tugging on Tyler’s sleeve. 

“Yeah, I know,” Tyler said quietly, staring down at his hands. He’d had to find a pair of thin black gloves to cover the odd substance; he told the counselor that he had horrible scarring over most of his body, and preferred to keep it covered up, hence the gloves, long sleeves, and a cool skeleton mask he’d found at a small fair nearby. It was big enough to cover all of his neck, and he could pull it up over his face if he felt the need to. Much easier to manage than a scarf. 

 

“You don’t sound too excited,” Josh murmured, and Tyler finally glanced up and met his eyes, ignoring the odd look on Josh’s face. Any time Josh saw him with brown eyes, he’d either look away or get a look of something that resembled worry on his face. Tyler tried not to think about it; he didn’t like the contacts either. 

 

“Technically I’ve already gone to highschool, when I was still alive,” Tyler said after a moment, glancing back down at his hands. “Wasn’t exactly the best time of my life.”

 

Josh didn’t question him any further, but simply smiled when Tyler met his eyes once more. 

 

\--

 

“If I have to introduce myself to one more fucking class, I swear to god,” Tyler muttered, walking in step with Josh as they made their way to the last class of the day. He prided himself on getting the same exact schedule as Josh, with minimal influencing the counselor. 

 

He caught Josh shrugging in the corner of his eye. “They do that with everyone new, I guess,” Josh said, sidestepping an odd crack in the ground. 

 

“Back when I was in school, they didn’t,” Tyler continued to complain. “Will our last class teacher make me introduce myself, too?” He glanced over at Josh, who looked at his eyes for a moment then away quickly before answering. 

 

“Probably. Sorry.” 

 

Tyler sighed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna make ty a bit more awkward but it just didnt fit uwu
> 
> anyways
> 
> i this story itself p much finished, just some random bits needing written, so updates should come faster


	13. trece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a chapter that isn't in chronological order. again. 
> 
> next chapter'll be pretty good.

Josh groaned in distress, flopped out on his bed in his underwear. It was fall, but uncharacteristically warm, almost warmer than in summer. Despite only wearing underwear, he was still really warm, and was trying in vain to ignore the weird sticky feeling of sweat drying on his skin. He groaned again. 

 

His younger siblings were outside, playing with little cheap squirt guns, but he doubted the neighbors would want an eyeful of him in his underwear, so he elected to stay in his air-conditioned room. 

 

Shittily air-conditioned, but slightly cooler than outside nonetheless. 

 

He sighed slowly, and eventually rolled over onto his stomach, relishing the feeling of the cold part of his bed for a few seconds before it warmed up to his body temperature. He groaned once more. 

 

And then felt something wet hit his back. 

 

He quickly flipped around, nearly smacking his head on the wall, but saw nothing. He ran a hand across his back and saw liquid; it smelled like water. Josh sighed, and lied back down, wondering if he should take a cold shower. 

 

Then another squirt of water hit him on the shoulder. 

 

Josh narrowed his eyes in the direction it came from, but couldn’t see a thing. 

 

Then another spurt hit his face. 

 

Josh grumbled, sitting up in bed and ignoring the fact that the cool water was kind of nice. Until he looked down and saw random drops of water all over his bedding. He groaned, yet again, and slowly made his way to the bathroom, electing to take a cold shower. Tyler giggled, and set down the little squirt gun he’d taken from outside, happy that temperature didn’t really affect him. 

 

\--

 

Josh groaned quietly, rolling over in his bed. He hadn’t been sleeping well the past couple of nights due to anxiety; and even now, as he was exhausted, he couldn’t fall asleep. 

 

He also kind of was craving oreos. 

 

Sighing, he got up, scratching his side idly as he wondered whether or not to put a shirt on. Deciding against it, he continued on out of his room in sweatpants, rubbing his eyes as he made his way towards the kitchen. 

 

He knew his mom had bought some oreos recently, specifically for him, since he’d said he wanted some a few days ago; the hard part was finding them in the mess of a pantry his family had. Eventually he came across his package of oreos; they were opened already, but he just assumed someone had taken a few. As long as most of them were there, he was happy. 

 

He padded back up to his room and pulled open his oreos, sitting down on his bed and smiling a little. He reached in and grabbed an oreo. 

 

It had no frosting. 

 

Josh made a confused noise in the back of his throat, inspecting the oreo; there were traces of frosting, but the majority of it looked to be licked entirely off. He sat it down, and grabbed another. 

 

Again, no frosting. 

 

A frown was forming on his face as he inspected all of the oreos, not able to find a single one with frosting. He sighed dejectedly, flopping back onto the bed. 

 

A moment passed, then another, then suddenly Josh got up, took the sad package of oreos, and angrily threw them out his window, watching as they littered the yard below, before curling up in his blanket, ignoring the slight campfire smell. 

 

After a little bit, Josh’s eyes began to droop, through he knew it would still be a long time before he fell asleep. He was still upset over the oreos; it wasn’t really that bad, but he’d wanted some for a while, and that particular moment was not a good moment to make even worse. 

 

Josh was too consumed in his thoughts to notice something rubbing his back soothingly at first, but by the time he noticed, he was too tired to care. The next morning, he figured he just imagined it. 

 

Until he rolled over, and a brand-new package of oreos was sitting on his bedside table, and a quick look outside showed that the package he’d thrown had been cleaned up. 

 

Josh stared at the new package for a second, before taking an oreo out and eating it, smiling to himself a little as he got ready for school. 


	14. catorce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's linear.

Going to school with a demon was kind of odd. 

 

But Josh thought it was even more odd that he almost forgot his friend was a demon, sometimes.

 

The two had the same schedule for classes, which was great, but also kind of rough when either one wanted some distance. But really, everything was just so easy. Tyler blended right in with the other students, becoming friendly with some but not actually friends; he acted like he’d been in the school for years already. No one seemed to question the gloves and scarflike thing he wore every day, most likely because no one wanted to get on his bad side. 

 

In all honesty, Josh was surprised to see Tyler fit in so well. He’d expected the demon to have no idea how to interact with teenagers, since most demons were so old. A part of him was jealous that Tyler could accomplish in a single week what Josh had been trying to do for years, but that part melted away when Tyler would turn away from whomever he had been talking to and rest his head on the human’s shoulder. 

 

Josh wasn’t ready to tackle the reason he felt so happy when Tyler did that yet. 

 

And Josh would never stop getting a kick out of watching a demon complain about math homework, though he was ever thankful that the demon was good with English class. Josh had thanked him profusely when learning that he passed his quarter exam thanks to Tyler, and bought Taco Bell in happiness. Tyler didn’t eat much of it, but both enjoyed the taste of the food, so it went well enough; Josh happily finished off the various food items that Tyler had tried, but left unfinished. Josh wondered idly why the demon looked slightly nostalgic when munching on his taco.

 

The first time one of the bullies tried to mess with Josh, Tyler had broken the abuser’s nose, and when questioned, managed to convince the principal that it was an accident, or self defense, or something; Josh didn’t quite catch the excuse. He vaguely wondered if Tyler could persuade people with his demony powers. 

 

After that incident, however, people messed with him less. Some people thought that the two were dating, and while Josh was slightly uncomfortable with those implications, Tyler’s smile kept him calm, and he let people think what they wanted to. Besides, his mom thought they were dating; it’d be odd to have two different stories floating around. 

 

Both were very thankful that no one had tried to hurt them for being together, even if the relationship was fake. Josh knew that Tyler could take anyone on in a fight, but it was a worry nonetheless. He knew Tyler wouldn’t be there all the time. 

 

Josh snapped out of his reflections on his walk home from school, hand tightening around Tyler’s as they matched pace. Today, Josh was having Tyler meet his mom for the first time. 

 

He was kind of scared. Both of them were, really; Josh could tell the demon was worried, but he hid it well enough that Josh didn’t want to ask about it, so instead the human ran his thumb over the other’s hand comfortingly. 

 

Josh took a deep breath, glancing over at Tyler, who smiled nervously back. No matter what mood Tyler was in, he always had a calming effect on the human. Josh took another deep breath, then opened the door, shouting to the house that he was home. 

 

“Joshie! Welcome home, I took the afternoon off today but I have to go back in toni-- Oh, is that Tyler? Oh, it’s lovely to meet you, why don’t you both come over and I’ll fix up some dinner?”

 

Josh watched with mild amusement as his mom rushed over and pulled the demon into a hug, smiling warmly at him and motioning for both of them to follow her. Tyler looked kind of scared, but also kind of happy. 

 

At Josh’s questioning glance, he murmured, “I haven’t had a mom hug me like that in a long time.” 

 

Josh nodded in understanding, and tried not to think about how lonely it must be being a demon as he pulled Tyler into the kitchen after his mom, who was already listing off food items. “I could make mac’n’cheese, or sandwiches, what kind of sandwiches do you like, honey? Or, oh, porkchops would be good, too--” 

 

“Mom, I think mac’n’cheese will be fine, it’s not even dinnertime yet,” Josh said in amusement. 

 

“Alright, that’s what I’ll fix up for you two then. Go ahead and get seated-- wait, Tyler, right? I’d like to talk with you alone first, want to make sure you won’t hurt my Joshie,” She said, and Josh winced as he pulled himself into the dining room. He felt bad for leaving Tyler in there, but there was no way to convince his mom to let it go. 

 

Tyler sucked in a deep breath, standing stiffly on one side of the kitchen. 

 

“So, your name is Tyler, right?” 

 

Tyler nodded, meeting Mrs. Dun’s eyes. They were almost as warm as Josh’s. 

 

“I heard you murmur something to Josh when you walked in, something about hugging people,” She said quietly, and her smile formed into one of sympathy.

 

Tyler froze, trying to think of a good backstory as to why he would have said that, when she said, “Sounds like your home isn’t the best,” and he had no time to respond to that as she added, “If you ever need to stay here, regardless of how you are with my Joshie, you’re welcome to.” 

 

Tyler stared at her in shock, meeting her eyes again, before smiling a little. “Thank you,” He said quietly, trying to ignore the guilt over how they’d lied to her. “That means a lot to me.” The emotion behind his statement was true, and Tyler used that to relieve some of his guilt. 

 

She smiled in response, then turned back to the mac’n’cheese. “You look a lot like someone I used to know of,” She murmured after a moment. “A friend of mine’s son, who committed suicide back when little Joshie was three years old.” She paused, and winked at Tyler, her tone lightening. “I guess that just makes me want to mother you even more,” She said, and glanced back at Tyler, smiling. Tyler tried not to think about how that matched up with his own life (and death)’s timeline. 

 

“Now go sit next to Joshie, he’s probably waiting for you and hoping I didn’t embarrass him too much.” She said, once again turning back to the mac’n’cheese. Tyler was glad that she didn’t expect a response. 

 

Tyler smiled and nodded, taking a deep breath once he was out of the room. He decided not to tell Josh about the conversation, and went for a long walk after dinner. 

 

While Tyler was out on his walk, Josh’s mom pulled her son aside,  smiling warmly at him. “I approve of this boy, Joshie,” She said, nodding to herself. “He seems like a little angel.”

 

It took a lot of self-control not to react to that statement. 

  
He decided against telling Tyler. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it was such a filler-y chapter, more stuff should be happening soon. please comment if you liked it/found a typo/just have something to say


	15. quince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah im actually putting up two chapters in a row that follow the timeline. woohoo. 
> 
> also very tiny kind of smut warning?

Tyler mumbled happily, still half asleep. His human was behind him, holding him close as if he was going to disappear at any second, and the demon didn’t really mind. 

 

He shifted a little, shivering a little as cold air flowed underneath the blanket, and clutched said blanket tighter against himself. Hot temperatures he could deal with, easily; that was proved by how Tyler didn’t mind the amount of heat Josh radiated. However, colder temperatures did the demon no good, and while it was nearing spring, it was still awfully cold. 

 

After another shift, Tyler decided he was comfortable, and sighed happily, grasping the human’s hand for a split second before letting go, attempting to go back to sleep. 

 

Tyler idly noticed Josh shift behind him, pulling him closer, but it didn’t degrade the amount of comfort he was in, so he didn’t react except for another happy sigh. 

 

The comfort lasted for a few minutes before Tyler realized that there was a hard object pressing against the small of his back. 

 

Tyler froze, eyes opening slowly as he tried to figure out how to deal with the situation. After a moment, instead of wondering how to deal with the situation, he wondered why this hadn’t happened before. The two of them shared a bed very often, and almost always cuddled this much. But, then again, Tyler was usually the one holding Josh, not the other way around. 

 

Tyler huffed a little, and tried to extract himself from Josh’s grip; the sleeping human only grumbled and pulled Tyler closer, his hips twitching a little bit. Tyler tried to fight away the blush rising to his cheeks, and again tried to extract himself. This time, it worked, if only because the human had woken up. 

 

Tyler stood next to the bed and glanced back at Josh, who blinked up at him blearily for a second before the realization set in, and his eyes widened. 

 

“Shit, Ty, I--”

 

Tyler cut him off. “It happens, I know. Don’t worry.” The demon grinned a little, hoping that in the dim light of dawn his slight blush wasn’t noticeable. Josh’s surely was. “Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t popped a boner cuddling with me before, as much of a catch as I am,”

 

Josh rolled over and groaned, still mumbling apologies under his breath. Tyler decided to save him the embarrassment and crawled out through the window, saying quietly that he was going for a walk. 

 

For the first few moments after Tyler left, Josh lay in his bed, motionless, unsure of what to do. The truth was, he had woken up with a boner many times while cuddling with the demon; the demon had just never noticed. 

 

Josh tried to ignore the implications of that, and rolled onto his other side, debating on taking a cold shower.

 

A quick glance at his alarm clock told him that if he took a shower now, he would be waking up his entire family a whole two hours early. Groaning again, he rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Normally he would take care of the problem in the shower, but that was out of the question this morning. 

 

Tentatively, Josh reached a hand down, grasping himself lightly. He wondered if he could just think ugly thoughts and make the problem go away, but he doubted it. He sighed, and slowly stroked himself, trying to think of anything but Tyler.

 

So, of course, the first image that popped into his mind was one of Tyler, kneeling over him with a predatory look in his eyes and a hand wrapped around--

 

Josh gasped, a blush rising to his cheeks as he came. He stayed in bed for a few moments longer, realizing he’d never come so fast before, and decided he would try to hide this memory far, far away. Josh groaned, rubbing his eyes, and rolled out of bed in order to clean up his mess. 

 

\--

 

By the time Tyler had come back, about an hour later, Josh was wide awake and there was no sign of his previous predicament. Tyler noticed an amount of tissues in Josh’s little trash can, and smirked knowingly, but decided against saying anything, just flopping onto the bed next to Josh, who had been roaming twitter. 

 

“I really am sorry about that,” Josh murmured after a moment, and looked as if he were trying to shrink into nothing. Tyler smiled at him reassuringly, rubbing his shoulder slightly. 

 

“Honestly, J, it’s fine. You’re a teenager. Stuff happens.” Tyler murmured back, hoping he sounded reassuring and forgiving. Not that Tyler was too upset about it in the first place. 

 

Josh smiled tentatively back, and the two curled up next to each other as Josh continued roaming twitter, Tyler watching more of how the human’s hands were moving than what was on the screen. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i wrote that horribly. i have no beta or anything. i tried. 
> 
> but its just a v sad masturbation. 
> 
> sorry. 
> 
> it is the first vaguely sexual thing ive ever written, though, so. shrug. (the 2nd is much more exciting and just a few chapters down the road ;3 and i feel like i did a lot better writing that chapter than i did this one.)


	16. dieciseis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not chronological. but cute. also did yall check instagram and see what ty posted about his anniversary? so cute. too cute. gagh.

 

Josh sighed happily, curling up into his bed after a particularly rough day. He closed his eyes, almost ready to fall asleep, when he suddenly realized--

 

“Fuck, I have English homework to do.”

 

Josh heaved a sigh before turning over in his bed, staring despairingly at the backpack on the other side of the room. After a moment, he rolled off the bed and made his way to the backpack, pulled out his book (which happened to be 1984, interesting if you liked to read but grueling otherwise). He stared at it for a second before squirming back to his bed, heaving himself up onto it and ignoring how tangled and twisted his blankets had become in his endeavors. 

 

The human hummed quietly, situating himself in a more comfortable position, and began to read. He ignored what felt like the bed dipping next to him; he had a ton of pillows behind him, chances are one slipped down a little. 

 

He refused to think about how odd things had been happening for so long now. Lady Luck just wasn’t in his favor, or whatever the saying was. He grumbled a little before continuing to read. 

 

He made it three pages in before he heard slight whispers behind him. Turning around swiftly, he noted that there was no one behind him; after staring a moment longer at his pillows, he turned back to his book. 

 

And heard a slight whispering again. He tried to ignore it for a second, thinking it was the wind (though he could clearly make out words) before he realized that it matched what he was reading. 

 

Josh spun around once again, but still, no one was behind him. The whispering ceased until he turned back to his book. 

 

Josh grumbled a little, and tried to read the book despite the whispering. (He ignored the fact that he was slowly getting accustomed to what felt like another person being near him most of the time.) After a few moments of this, he realized that there was no way he could concentrate with this whispering. 

 

So, instead, he listened to the whispering. 

 

He found himself following along with the whispered words, sometimes tripping up; surely, he could have read the thing faster than whatever it was was whispering it, but he felt kind of content to listen. 

 

\--

 

Tyler paused in his quiet read-along, glancing at the human; Josh didn’t seem to be perturbed by the whispering. Rather, his brow was furrowed as if he expected Tyler to continue quietly reading along, despite the fact that he couldn’t see where the voice was coming from. Tyler watched the human for a moment longer, then began to read the book again, a tad bit louder this time. 

 

It wasn’t until over half an hour later that Tyler realized the human had fallen asleep; once he would get to the end of a page, the human would flip to the next page, and let Tyler continue to read. However, this time, Josh didn’t flip the page. Tyler was confused for a moment, before he realized that the human had fallen asleep, head still pretty much in the same position, grip on the book slightly loose. 

 

Tyler smiled a little to himself, noting that the human’s mouth hung open slightly when he slept, before pulling the book from his hands and closing it (marking the page they were on first). He sat the book on Josh’s bedside table before gently petting the human’s hair and taking his place in the other corner of the room. 

 

Tyler ignored his internal questioning as to why he decided to care for this human. 

 

This beautiful, wonderful, tired human. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO guess who realized they had english homework the second they wrote about josh having english homework  
> and guess who isnt doing their english homework


	17. diecisiete

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am SO SORRY this took so long i got writers block. im almost done with this story tho. i mean, im almost done actually writing it. still gonna space it out a bit. 
> 
> i promise the next update will be sooner. and fun. v fun. 
> 
> (sidenote i need to work on putting more detail into things)

It had been a long day. One of the teachers had yelled at Josh for not paying attention, and while this wasn’t too bad in and of itself, the human hadn’t been feeling well that day at all, worried about later tests and probably starting to get sick with some sort of cold. 

 

After the two had gotten home, Tyler wordlessly pulled the human to his room and held him for a bit, calming him down before Josh sighed and said he had to go help his mom with something. 

 

It had been about an hour after Josh left the room, and Tyler was quietly thinking over a few things; namely, his contacts. Or, more specifically, why Josh always tried to avoid his eyes when he wore the contacts. 

 

The demon had figured that seeing him with brown eyes rather than red would be easier, not harder, to accept. 

 

Tyler sighed, stretching out on the bed, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. Turns out that contacts can hurt just as much regardless of if he was a demon or a human. 

 

He sat like that for a minute, then decided to take matters into his own hands. 

 

“Hey, Joshie,” He called out, waiting a minute before hearing the sound of a door opening; he looked over to Josh, who was giving him a confused look. Tyler paused for a moment, then asked, “Do you have a problem with my contacts?”

 

Tyler was expecting Josh to look guilty, or try to look innocent as he lied and said no. Tyler was not expecting Josh to blush a bright red and look like he was considering trying to leave the room immediately. He looked anywhere but at Tyler. 

 

“No,” Josh muttered after a long moment. Tyler watched Josh in confusion, not replying. 

 

Josh glanced back at Tyler, cheeks still bright red, but didn’t open his mouth to say anything more. 

 

Eventually, Tyler sighed. “Then what’s up? You keep giving me weird looks when I’m wearing them. If you don’t like them or something, at least tell me.”

 

Tyler watched in even more confusion as Josh shook his head quickly. “No, no, I like them, they look really--” Josh stopped talking, turned even more red, and this time did actually leave the room. 

 

Tyler blinked in confusion, trying not to find the situation amusing. He was kind of failing. 

 

“Uh, Josh?” He called out again, sitting up, pulling off his gloves. “You okay?”

 

After a long moment Josh came back in the room, slightly less red. “Yeah, sorry, just, uh, well, I mean,”

 

“Josh, that isn’t English.”

 

Josh quickly became silent and glanced up at Tyler, meeting his eyes for a long moment, before turning bright red again. Instead of leaving, however, he strode across the room and sat next to Tyler. 

 

“Josh?” Tyler asked, concerned. He turned to look at his human, meeting his eyes once again. 

 

Without saying a word, Josh leaned in towards Tyler, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and placing a quick kiss on his lips. As soon as he was there, he was gone, pulling away so fast he smacked his head on the wall behind him. 

 

“Oh,” Tyler murmured, then shifted closer to Josh, wrapping an arm around him when it looked like he was going to run away, and giving him a quick kiss before pulling the human towards him. 

 

“You look really good with brown eyes,” He heard Josh murmur. 

 

Tyler hummed softly, and shifted so he was more comfortable. “Do I look good without brown eyes, or is that the deal breaker?” He asked quietly, smiling a little. He was trying to ignore the giddy feeling in his chest. 

 

Josh was silent for a moment before answering. “I think you look good all the time.” 

 

Tyler huffed a laugh. “Well, so do you. ‘Cept when you have a huge bruise on your side, that was a bit of a turn off.” 

 

Josh glanced over to meet his eyes, blushing for a moment before saying, “That was over a month ago.”

 

Tyler nodded quietly, sighing a little. “I think I’ve liked you for a while.”

 

Josh nodded, adding after a second, “Me too.” He smiled a little before curling in next to Tyler. 

 

“So we are actually dating.” Tyler said. 

 

Josh nodded into his side. 

 

“And to think this was what was giving you the most trouble when your mom first found out about me,” Tyler chuckled. 

 

Josh hummed. “I think this is why it was giving me trouble,” He murmured after a moment. “I was in denial.”

 

“To be fair, most people would be in denial about liking a demon that was soul bound to torment them for the rest of their lives.”

  
Josh nodded sagely in agreement, then flopped onto the bed next to the demon, curling into his side. Tyler ignored the fact that it was only seven in the evening, and smiled a little, pulling Josh closer and closing his eyes. 


	18. el fin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. So. I apologize deeply for not having updated in so long. I am so, so sorry. 
> 
> In apologies, instead of spreading this out amongst the 5 or so chapters that this would take up, I decided to have it all at once. 
> 
> Also, in this are my first two attempts at writing smut and i know i am horrible at it i am so so sorry 
> 
> also suicide tw at the v end, not like actively one of them commits suicide but its talked about

This was the second time Tyler had woken up with Josh’s hard on pressed against the small of his back. 

Tyler sighed quietly, wondering what to do this time. He could leave, give Josh his privacy to take care of his problem, or at least wake the human up so he was aware of the situation. 

And Tyler was just about to do that, wake him up then give him privacy, but then the human pressed himself harder against Tyler and made a small noise in the back of his throat, and Tyler very quickly decided he would much rather hear his human make those noises forever. 

Without really thinking about it, the demon twisted around so that he was face to face with Josh, and paused for a moment to admire the human’s sleeping figure. Josh always looked so much more peaceful, less tense, when he was asleep. Then Josh’s mouth opened slightly, and his hips rocked forward again, and he made another one of those noises and Tyler couldn’t help himself. 

He inhaled quickly, and reached down to palm the human through his boxers; Josh hadn’t worn anything else to bed, and Tyler was very suddenly grateful for that. He brought his other hand up to run along Josh’s chest, pausing on his side when he noticed the human waking up. 

Josh stared at him with wide eyes, and opened his mouth wider as if to begin to apologize, but before he could do so Tyler began to massage Josh through his boxers again, and any apologies were lost as he let out a moan, cheeks flushing. 

Tyler grinned a little to himself, continuing to palm the other, just a tad bit slower. Josh let out a whine as he slowed down, and the demon himself had to bite back a moan at the sound, instead ducking forward and attaching his lips to the other’s throat, nibbling slightly. He felt, moreso than heard, the low groan Josh let out at that; Tyler pulled back soon after, pressing his lips just next to Josh’s ear as he whispered, “We need to keep quiet, we don’t want your family hearing this.” 

Tyler felt Josh shiver against him as he said that, and grinned to himself, pressing another kiss to the human’s neck before taking his hands away from the human for a split second. He flipped Josh onto his back and swiftly moved over him, ‘accidentally’ grinding down as he did so, and this time he couldn’t bite back his own low moan at the sound Josh made. 

He grinded down again, more purposeful this time, and locked lips with Josh to keep him quiet (and maybe to keep himself quiet, as well). The kiss started out innocent, and stayed that way for about two seconds, before Josh opened his mouth slightly to moan again. Tyler took advantage of that action and licked into Josh’s mouth, groaning lowly as he shifted against Josh again. 

After a moment, Tyler pulled away, admiring Josh as he continued to grind against him; the human’s eyes had fallen shut, but his mouth was open and soft moans were pouring out of it. His hands were grasping for purchase anywhere; one eventually rested in Tyler’s hair, the other digging in with nails into Tyler’s shoulder. 

Tyler took a moment longer to admire this before he ducked down again, sucking a deep purple mark into the human’s neck, before pressing soft kisses all around, trying to find the area that Josh was most sensitive in. 

Tyler pressed a soft kiss to the underside of Josh’s jaw, and the human let out a small groan; Tyler grinned for a second to himself, then proceeded to bite down into the skin, closing his eyes as he admired the loud moan Josh let out. 

“Ty,” He heard, and he pulled away to notice that Josh had opened his eyes just slightly, and if Tyler wasn’t hard before he would’ve been after seeing the look in his human’s eyes. “T-Touch me?” 

Tyler wasn’t going to say no. 

Pulling away slightly, Tyler positioned himself so that he could get a good grasp on Josh, placing one hand beside the human’s head for support as he reached down. His fingers traced the hemline of Josh’s boxers, and he glanced up, waiting for Josh to nod at him before reaching in and grasping, smirking slightly at the low groan Josh let out. 

After a few strokes, Tyler paused (and relished in the whine he received) to admire Josh, with his head thrown back and mouth open, chest rising and falling quickly. His hair stuck to his forehead slightly, and Tyler thought he was the most beautiful thing in that moment. He took his hand out and licked it to help, and returned to his previous task.

Another whine got his hand moving again, faster than before; he heard Josh’s erratic breathing and guessed that he was close. He began to stroke even faster, dipping down to suck a mark on Josh’s collarbone--

And felt a hand close around his own erection. He bite down, hard, half in surprise and half in pleasure; the hand around him tightened slightly as Josh groaned, and he felt Josh begin to stroke. Tyler let out a groan of his own as he moved his hand faster. 

Moments later, Tyler felt his human’s hand tighten slightly, and heard a choked “c-close”. He took that as a cue to move faster, and glanced up to watch as Josh came, shouting his name and back arching. It wasn’t too long after that Tyler came himself, and he let himself collapse on top of the human, ignoring the sticky mess between them and in his boxers. 

The two lay there for a long moment before Josh murmured, “That was nice,”

Tyler nodded, resting his head in the crook of Josh’s neck, breathing heavily. Even as a demon, this type of exercise was tiring. He felt Josh run a hand through his hair, then lightly shove at him. He grumbled slightly, but rolled off of the human, laughing a little at the mess they made. 

Josh stared at the mess for a moment, then glanced up to Tyler, who was still looking at the mess. They met eyes for a moment, and Josh opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Tyler ran a finger through the mixture of their cum on Josh’s stomach and promptly licked it off, refusing to break eye contact with Josh. 

He noted that Josh’s cock made a feeble twitch at the sight. 

“I was going to say,” Josh said after a moment, staring at Tyler’s mouth. “That we should probably take a shower.”

“Together?”

Josh smiled shyly and nodded, then added, “As long as my parents don’t hear us,”

“If they didn’t hear you scream my name earlier, then I don’t think they’re gonna notice us in the shower, J.” Tyler said, and pulled the human in for a quick kiss before reaching over for a tissue to clean up some of the mess. 

\--

Tyler rolled over to face Josh later that night, as they began to fall asleep. “I wasn’t pushing you too far, this morning, was I?” He asked quietly, slight worry evident in his eyes. 

Josh smiled slightly. “No, don’t worry.” Tyler hummed in response, burying his head in the crook of Josh’s neck, pressing soft kisses to his shoulder. 

Josh opened his mouth to say something, and closed it again. Tyler pulled back, brows furrowed, meeting Josh’s eyes once again. After a moment of apparent deliberation, the human said, “I’m glad I have you here.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, but closed it yet again. 

  
Tyler smiled, murmured something similar, and curled into Josh’s form. Josh smiled, wrapping an arm around him and falling asleep.

 

\--

 

“Hey, Tyler,”

 

Tyler froze, swiftly turning around. He’d gone on another walk, roaming the city aimlessly while Josh slept. It’d been a boring day, but Tyler was restless. 

 

And the person speaking to him was not Josh.

 

Or any human, for that matter. 

 

Tyler vaguely recognized him from over six months ago, as being one of the 10 or so demons called down for the same reason he was; that didn’t answer why this demon was here, though. 

 

He seemed to understand that Tyler was confused, because he continued speaking. “I just wanted you to know that the person who summoned us all is pretty much almost dead, and he didn’t put in any safeguards to keep us after he dies. So, y’know, you can go wherever again. I’d recommend checking back in at home, there’s been a couple of changes.”

 

Tyler nodded, processing the information, before turning away from the other demon. After a moment, Tyler sighed and responded, “Alright, I’ll head back tomorrow.” That appeared to be what the other was waiting for, because Tyler heard a soft whoosh and a glance behind him showed that he’d left. 

 

Tyler stood still for a moment, looking down at his shoes and rubbing his hands over the hems of his (Josh’s) shirt. After a long moment, he turned and headed back to Josh’s home, debating what to do next. 

 

\--

 

“Ty?” Josh murmured, rolling over, but seeing no sign of the demon. Brows furrowed, Josh glanced around and sat up, repeating himself a bit louder. Still no sign of Tyler. After a moment, Josh saw a piece of paper on his bedstand. 

 

_ Something’s come up. I’ll be back soon. -Tyler _

 

Josh huffed, slightly confused but mostly upset that the demon had left him. Josh then began to ponder when ‘soon’ would be. Was Tyler just visiting some other demons? Do demons do that? Did something come up in Hell? Does Hell even have a system for issues to pop up in? 

 

Josh shook his head, and sighed, getting ready for the day ahead on his own. 

 

\--

 

“Two weeks.” 

 

Tyler stood in the doorway to Josh’s room, staring at the human who was sitting stiffly on his bed. The demon winced at the look of resentment in Josh’s eyes. 

 

“Yeah,” Tyler murmured after a moment, stepping into the room. He stepped back when he met Josh’s eyes again; the human seemed really upset. 

 

“No warning, no explanation, just gone for two weeks.” Josh said, voice deathly calm. 

 

“It was private business.” Tyler said quietly, rubbing his hand over the back of his head. 

 

“So I don’t get any more explanation?” 

 

Tyler sighed and shook his head. 

 

Josh was silent for a long moment, before saying, “You said you wouldn’t leave.”

 

“I came back, didn’t I?”

 

Josh huffed, and turned away, grabbing a blanket to curl up in bed with. Tyler recognized his desire to be left alone, and turned to leave the room, electing to spend the night roaming the city once more. 

 

\--

 

Josh woke up around 3 in the morning as he felt a dip in the bed, and someone curl up behind him, pulling him close. “I’m sorry,” He heard. “But I don’t know what to do.”

 

Josh tried to ignore those words as he fell back asleep. 

 

\--

 

“Why don’t you want to come with?” Josh asked, trying not to let the hurt seep into his words. The past month hadn’t been good; Tyler seemed to be growing more distant, spending time just staring off into space as if thinking, and disappearing for long walks, for hours at a time. He’d stayed home from school once every few days, and even though he still cuddled Josh at night, he rarely went any further. 

 

Josh tried to ignore the feeling that Tyler had gotten tired of him. 

 

“I have some things to think about,” Tyler said after a minute, surprising Josh out of his thoughts. “It’ll be fine. No one’s gonna bug you.” Tyler met his eyes impassively for a moment, before turning back to his hands, rubbing at them as if to rid them of the black substance. 

 

Josh sighed, nodding mutely, before grabbing a shirt and pulling it over his head. He left without a word, trying not to clench his hands around the hem of his shirt. 

 

\--

 

Josh stumbled into the house, rushing up the stairs to get to Tyler--

 

Before realizing the demon wasn’t there. 

 

“Tyler?” He called out. After a long moment, he shouted louder, “Tyler?!” His hands shook a little bit, but he tried to ignore it. After a moment, there was a soft swish and Tyler was behind him, a face of annoyance fading into one of worry as he took in Josh’s. 

 

“What happened?” The demon asked, gently reaching forward to motion towards a quickly forming black eye. 

 

“You said they wouldn’t mess with me,” Josh murmured, and suddenly his desire to be comforted by the demon churned into something worse. He flinched away when Tyler reached to pull him into a hug, and gave him a long, cold look. 

 

“Tyler, what the hell has been with you?!” Josh ignored the demon’s wince and continued. “Why the hell did you leave for so long? Why aren’t you sticking with me? You were supposed to protect me! I got hurt because you weren’t there, why didn’t you stay with me?” Josh took a step closer to the demon. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He asked, wishing he didn’t hurt as much as he did, because he really wanted to slap the demon. 

 

He wasn’t expecting Tyler to swiftly step forward, a furious look on his face. “Why don’t you learn to protect your own fucking self?” Tyler muttered, lightly pushing Josh away from him. “It’s not my responsibility to keep you safe. Fuck, if anything, I was supposed to do the exact opposite, hurt you so bad mentally and physically that your only option would be to fucking kill yourself. And you know what? I don’t even need to do that anymore.” Tyler paused, glowering at Josh for a moment before continuing, “The fucker that tied me to you died. I don’t have any obligation to stay here at all.”

 

Josh stared at the demon in shock, silent as those words sunk in. After a moment, he felt his face contort into one of anger and shoved at the demon, ignoring the pain in his side and arm and face and leg and-- “Why don’t you just fucking leave, then?! Obviously you don’t want to be here!” 

 

Josh felt even more furious as Tyler huffed in irritation. “I was trying to find a good way to tell you, but obviously that didn’t work.” However, the demon had yet to leave. 

 

And, honestly, Josh didn’t want him to. But. The demon said himself he didn’t want to stay. 

 

“Leave.” Josh murmured. “I don’t want you here anymore.”

 

He turned away as the demon angrily stalked out of the room, ignoring the whooshing sound that must have meant he was teleporting away. 

 

Then Josh took a deep breath, and another, and then crumpled onto the floor and cried, blindly reaching out for his blanket before realizing it wasn’t there. 

 

His blanket wasn’t there. 

 

\--

 

“What happened to Tyler?”

 

“Is he coming back to school?”

 

“He’s sick, isn’t he?”

 

“He didn’t die, did he?”

 

“Did you guys break up?”

 

“Were you even together?”

 

“What happened to him?”

 

“Why isn’t he here?” 

 

\--

 

Josh groaned quietly to himself, staring blankly at the paper in front of him. First period of the day, and already he felt the air suffocating him; he had a feeling he wouldn’t make it through the day without needing to go home. 

 

So far it had been a month. A month of dealing with questions (that eventually tapered off after a couple of days) as to where Tyler was, of dealing with the bullies coming back in full force, of trying to swallow down his anxiety, of feeling like his heart had been ripped out by a creature that he was doubting could even love someone in the first place. 

 

Josh groaned again. He’d fallen in love with someone who couldn’t love him back. 

 

He’d never told Tyler he loved him. 

 

Josh slowly rested his head on the desk, immediately giving up on the assignment; the bell signalling the start of class had yet to ring, and wouldn’t for another minute. Josh had given up before class even started. 

 

\--

 

“What the fuck you think you’re doing, faggot?” 

 

Josh winced, and pulled his bag higher onto his shoulder, walking faster. Just one more class. Just one more. Deal with these people for just one more hour. 

 

He let out a squeak as he was shoved to the ground, half cement and half grass, scraping his elbow on the cement. He warily looked up, noting that there were only three people ready to hurt him, no more. 

 

“ _ Why don’t you learn to protect your own fucking self?”  _

 

Josh took a deep breath, and forced himself upward, dropping his backpack behind him, readying himself to fight back. 

 

\--

 

“Josh?” 

 

Josh blearily opened his eyes, frowning in confusion when met with Tyler’s face. His frown deepened as he looked towards his body, resting in white sheets with a cast around his leg and a needle in his arm. “Wh..” He coughed a little, unable to continue. He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes as he coughed until he felt something cold pressing against his lips; he opened his eyes slightly and saw Tyler holding a glass of water to him. Josh took a sip, and eventually grabbed the glass with his own hand. 

 

After a lot of sips of water and blinking away any bleariness, Josh turned to Tyler. “What happened?”  _ Why are you here?  _

 

The demon appeared to look guilty, and Josh took a moment to notice he was dressed as a human, complete with brown contacts and skull-design mask. “I came back,” Tyler said softly, shaking Josh from his thoughts. “I decided I still want to be with you. So I came back, and wanted to surprise you after school; I miscalculated and ended up arriving during 7th, but I figured I’d wait, until I found you nearly passed out with three others beating on you. I got them off of you, called the cops, all of that.”

 

Josh stayed silent, unsure of how to reply. He met Tyler’s eyes, suddenly extremely happy that he could see the demon in those contacts once more. 

 

“They said you tried to fight back,” Tyler whispered after a moment, and Josh noticed that the demon was starting to tear up. “That’s why they hurt you so much.” 

 

Josh reached out with his other hand to grasp Tyler’s, ignoring a slight pain in his elbow. He squeaked in surprise as the demon threw himself on top of him, clutching at the sheets covering his body, sobbing into his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I never should have said those things, I promise I didn’t mean it, you-- you shouldn’t’ve-- I told you to fight back but-- you got  _ hurt _ \--” Josh couldn’t make out any more of what he was saying, but understood, and ran his fingers through the demon’s hair as he felt tears drip down his own cheeks. 

 

They stayed that way for a while, calming down and simply enjoying being with each other as they did so. “Does this mean you’re going to stay?” Josh asked quietly, fingers pausing in Tyler’s hair. 

 

“Yeah,” Tyler said, raising his head to smile at Josh. “I’m staying.” 

 

Josh grinned, and leaned forward to catch the other in a kiss. 

 

\--

 

“Damn, I can’t believe it’s almost the end of the school year.” Josh murmured, and Tyler mumbled a soft agreement. In actuality, the demon wasn’t paying that much attention to Josh’s words, but moreso to the way his newly dyed red hair looked under the streetlamps and stars, and how his eyes keep glancing over and crinkling slightly when he noticed Tyler was still there.

 

Actually, that last part lent itself a bit more to guilt than anything else; Tyler knew it would be a while before his human trusted him to stay again. 

 

It had been three days since Josh was let out of the hospital, and twice as many since Josh had been able to walk again. There were no broken bones, thankfully, but many bruises and sprains and even a concussion. Every time Tyler noticed one of the bandages from broken skin he winced and wished, yet again, that he had chosen to show up just a little bit earlier.

 

“Tyler?”

 

Tyler was shaken out of his thoughts as Josh softly said his name. The human seemed a bit concerned; Tyler guessed he must have been talking and waiting for Tyler to reply for quite some time. 

 

“Yeah?” He said eventually, watching as a curl of red hair flicked down over Josh’s forehead, and he absentmindedly swept it away. 

 

“You’re spacing out again,” Josh said worriedly. 

 

Tyler sighed, and glanced away for a second before saying, “I’m just glad I’m here with you again.”

 

He wasn’t looking at Josh, so he felt a bit of surprise as his human pulled him in for a side hug, fingers digging into his shoulders. Tyler glanced over at Josh again, and in that moment a car passed by with headlights on full blast and he could have sworn that Josh was no human at all, that he was an angel. 

 

Tyler smiled softly. “I love you,” he whispered after a moment, not thinking about the words until they were out of his mouth. He wasn’t given enough time to worry about those words, either, because he was swept up in watching Josh’s face light up, and the human pulled him in for a quick kiss.

 

“I love you too,” He heard, murmured against his lips. “So much.” 

 

Tyler smiled, and they continued the rest of the way home. 

 

They were almost there, in fact, when Josh asked, “So, when do you want to go all the way with me?”

 

Tyler saw Josh grin out of the corner of his eye as he choked, but noted with satisfaction that his human’s cheeks were probably as flushed as his were. “Um,” Tyler murmured eloquently. 

 

The demon watched as Josh glanced away, flushing even more. Eventually, Tyler murmured, “Whenever you’re ready.” 

 

It was a silent and kind of awkward finish to their walk, and the two of them didn’t speak until they were back in Josh’s bedroom, Tyler standing in the middle while Josh shuffled to his bed. 

 

“I’m ready,” Josh murmured, and reached out to grasp Tyler’s wrist almost desperately and pull the demon towards him. Tyler didn’t resist, trying to ignore the way his breath caught in his throat with those two words, and situated himself on Josh’s lap to kiss him deeply. 

 

“Are you sure?” Tyler murmured, pulling away to look Josh in the eyes as his human murmured an affirmative, and pulled him back in for a kiss. Tyler sighed softly in content, running his hands along Josh’s back, eventually tangling one in his red hair and sliding the other under Josh’s shirt, passing teasingly over his nipple. 

 

Tyler huffed a laugh as Josh gasped at the sensation, and pulled away from the kiss to pull a deep mark from Josh’s shoulder, biting probably a bit too hard into it afterwards--

 

But judging from the heavy gasp and twitch of Josh’s hips, Josh didn’t mind in the least. 

 

“As enjoyable as this is,” Josh murmured into Tyler’s hair. “Can we get on with it?”

 

Tyler huffed a laugh, continuing to nibble at the junction between Josh’s shoulder and neck. “Patience,” He murmured. 

 

“Tease,” Josh huffed in reply, and tugged on Tyler’s hair lightly, trying to get him to do  _ something _ more. In retaliation, Tyler tightened his hand in Josh’s hair and pulled, not expecting the low groan he received. 

 

After a few more moments, Tyler pulled away and pushed on Josh’s chest until the human was laying on his back, and Tyler had to pause to take in the sight. Josh was breathing heavily, his chest heaving slightly. His hair was messier than usual and in the dim light looked the colour of blood. There were multiple dark marks on Josh’s neck and shoulder, though none too high up; Tyler knew he would have to hide the marks later, and had enough self control to at least make that easier to do. 

 

In short, the sight was beautiful, and it took Josh whining in impatience for him to move forward and do something. 

 

And he was about to, as well, before he sighed and realized he had no lube or condoms. Josh seemed to have understood what he meant by that sigh, because he murmured “nightstand” after a long second, and Tyler quickly pulled the necessary items out. 

 

Over the course of their making out and getting resituated, both had lost their shirts and Josh was currently shimmying out of his pants. Tyler moved to help him, and remove his boxers, before removing his own; he had a moment to think about how they were both naked now before he moved forward and knelt in a somewhat awkward position to become eye level with Josh’s dick. 

 

Tyler smirked, and gave a few kitten licks to the head before pulling away and coating a few of his fingers in lube. Tyler wished he could hear the sounds Josh had made, high and tight and a little breathless, forever. 

 

However, he figured the low moan he received after slowly pressing in his first finger and crooking it just slightly into the human’s prostate was an even better sound. 

 

He paused after that, glancing up to see Josh’s face, noting some of his hair was slicked to his forehead. “You doing okay?”

 

Josh groaned in frustration and murmured something mostly unintelligible, but mixed with the buck of Josh’s hips, Tyler got the message and slowly pressed in another finger. After a bit of working those fingers around, he had to use his other hand to hold himself for a moment, worried he would come just from Josh’s sounds alone. 

 

After a moment Josh’s hips bucked up again, and Tyler’s hand returned to his hips, this time his fingers digging in and pressing down. He noted with satisfaction that Josh couldn’t move his hips up. 

 

Another finger and some impatient groaning from Josh later, Tyler deemed he was stretched enough, and quickly slipped on a condom and lubed himself up. 

 

He was about to ask Josh if he was doing alright, but before he could the human murmured, “Hurry,”

 

So Tyler did. Kind of. He pressed in slowly, hoping not to hurt the human, and paused once he got the head in. He glanced up at Josh, waiting for Josh to adjust, and was soon surprised by Josh’s legs wrapping around his back, trying to pull him closer. Tyler huffed, and soon bottomed out, groaning as he did so. 

 

He thrust slowly a few times, trying to hold out so as not to hurt the human, but soon Josh murmured “harder” and looked at him with those eyes, and Tyler couldn’t help but slam into the human, rewarded by soft moans and calloused hands clawing at his back and tangling in his hair. Remembering from earlier, Tyler lifted one hand to pull at Josh’s hair, and leaned down to kiss him, humming softly. 

 

Tyler knew he wasn’t going to last long, and judging by the look on Josh’s face, he wouldn’t last very long either. Tyler felt his thrusts grow slightly erratic when Josh looked up and met his eyes, warm and brown, and murmured “touch me?”

 

Tyler moved his hand from Josh’s hair to his cock, pulling slow strokes, flicking his thumb over the head and finding himself breathless with how Josh keened at the feeling. His other hand found its way to Josh’s hip and tightened, fingers digging in, surely going to leave bruises. 

 

Tyler felt himself getting closer, and leaned down to press kisses to Josh’s neck. Josh let out a soft moan and Tyler felt as if he saw stars, groaning as he came, biting hard into Josh’s neck. He thought he could taste a little blood, and tried to lick it away as he pulled a few last strokes and felt Josh come between them. 

 

Tyler pulled out slowly, rolling over to lay on his back next to Josh, eyes closed. 

 

“Holy shit,” He heard Josh murmur, and huffed a laugh in response. 

 

“Yeah.”

 

Eventually, Tyler opened his eyes and haphazardly wiped the two of them off, peeling off his condom and throwing it in the general direction of Josh’s trash can. “We can shower in the morning,” Tyler murmured, and pulled Josh close to him, admiring his human for a moment before pressing a soft kiss to his lips. 

 

“Love you,” Josh murmured, and before Tyler could reply likewise, he had fallen asleep. 

 

\--

 

(A few years later.)

 

“It’s weird that you can control how old you appear to people,” Josh murmured, running his hand over the other’s back. 

 

“But useful. Imagine if I didn’t age?”

 

Josh chuckled, nodding slightly before breaking off in a moan as the demon mouthed at his neck. “I can be as young as you want me in bed, though.”

 

Josh paused, then grimaced, shoving the demon off of him. “You’re making me sound like a pedophile, Ty,” He said, scowling. “And just killed my boner.”

 

The demon paused for a moment, going over what he’d said in his head, before bursting into laughter. Josh’s scowl grew deeper, but eventually the demon stopped laughing and apologized. “I swear I didn’t mean it like that,” He said, taking deep breaths to calm down and avoid bursting into another fit of giggles. 

 

Josh rolled his eyes and pulled the other into a kiss. 

 

\--

 

“Where are we going, Ty?” 

 

Tyler didn’t respond, instead, he adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and held out one hand for Josh to hold in the passenger seat. Josh sighed slightly, but took the demon’s hand, rubbing his thumb over it comfortably. 

 

Josh stayed quiet, sometimes adjusting the radio, as they rode on; about an hour later, Tyler finally pulled to a stop, and Josh took in the scene around them. A graveyard. 

 

Josh swallowed down any fears he had, and followed Tyler as he got out of the car, walking quickly into the cemetery, Josh having to almost jog to keep up. 

 

Tyler suddenly stopped, causing Josh to swing his arms wildly to avoid bumping into him, and turned. 

 

“This is my grave.” He said quietly, motioning towards a nondescript tombstone, with the name “Tyler Joseph”, some dates, and a cheesy quote engraved in neat letters.

 

Josh tried not to freeze in shock, staring at the words for a moment before turning back to Tyler. “Why are you showing me this?”

 

Tyler was silent at first, but after a few minutes he turned to look at Josh. “We’ve been together for five years. I figured you should know.”

 

Josh nodded slightly, and took Tyler’s hand in his once more. The demon gave him a small smile, then turned back to his own gravestone; Josh did the same. 

 

_ 1985-2002.  _

 

“You died in highschool?” Josh murmured after a moment. 

 

“I killed myself in highschool.” Tyler said, and Josh felt his hand shaking underneath his own. “And I’ve regretted it every day since.”

 

“We got to meet each other, though,” Josh said, glancing earnestly at Tyler. “That’s something.”

 

Tyler smiled at him; a big smile, this time, with crinkled eyes and a scrunched up nose. “Yeah. That’s something.”

 

Josh pulled slightly on Tyler’s hand, and the two left the cemetery, Tyler in higher spirits than he had been in a long time. 

  
He ignored the odd glance they got as they passed a woman older than them, holding a piece of notebook paper in her hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed. also, would you like one more chapter with all the extra blurbs of tyler being annoying? Theres only like three, but I didn't want to add them in this chapter because it might cause things to get confusing. if you want those, i'll make one more chapter with them.
> 
> also feedback is v appreciated!
> 
> oh also can yall guess who the older woman with notebook paper was i wanna see if someone gets it


	19. bonus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is all just extra blurbs of ty messing with josh. these were meant to be interspaced in the last chapter, but that would have been confusing, so.

“Hey, thanks for comin’ to the mall with me, man!” Mark said, grinning over at Josh for a second as they drove along. 

 

“Yeah, no problem, I haven’t really been getting out much so this ought to be fun,” Josh murmured. He had yet to tell anyone, but for some reason he just seemed to be having the worst of luck this past week. School had started a month ago, and he figured if something would have changed it would have been then, but no, this bad luck started just as school began getting actually hard. 

 

“School starting to get rough?” Mark asked, this time keeping his eyes on the road. Josh nodded mutely, figuring Mark would see him out of the corner of his eye (and he figured correctly). Mark generally did better in classes than Josh did, which Josh wouldn’t have minded, but Mark also decided that this year he wouldn’t be helping Josh with homework as much. 

 

(Really, Mark was just more busy with his new film club.)

Josh sighed, shaking his thoughts away as they pulled into the parking lot. Mark had turned off the car and gotten out, slamming the door behind him, before Josh even really registered that they had parked. 

 

“C’mon, I wanna poke around before the hoards of other people get here.” Mark said, and the two took off, walking swiftly through the doors and headed straight to this store and were almost through the door when--

 

**_beep beep beep_ **

 

“What the hell?” Josh muttered, glancing around him, and then stepping into the store. Mark glanced back at him, eyes widened in confusion, as an employee took their time to walk over and figure out what was going on. 

 

“Hm, maybe you have something in your phone that set it off?” She asked after a moment. “Try stepping through without your phone.”

 

Josh did just that, but the beeping returned. He sighed, and decided to see if somehow a security thing had been left on his jeans or something. 

 

On the inside of his left pant leg was a single object, crudely sewn in, and small enough that he hadn’t noticed it was there. He (with help from the employee) managed to get it cut out, then stepped through the doorway just to make sure. Mark had long since wandered off, looking at some t-shirts. 

 

**_beep beep beep_ **

 

Josh groaned. The employee smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry, I know you’re not stealing.”

 

Later that day, when Josh got home (after repeating this process at every store they went to, and removing three more security sensor things), he pulled off his pants and shirt and inspected them, finding probably ten more of the things. 

 

Josh groaned, and set to work slowly cutting them out, doing as little damage to his clothes as possible. He didn’t notice the spool of thread with a needle sticking out of it on his dresser, or the soft giggles coming from just outside the room.

 

A couple months later, Josh wore that same pair of jeans to the mall. As he stepped through the door, the beeping returned. He sighed, and went straight back home. 

 

_____

 

“Now honey, you just got your license, and I won’t tell you not to have other kids in the car but please drive safely! And only use the van when I give my express permission.”

 

Josh nodded, having heard these same words about five times previous in the past hour. His mom was a bit more worried than he should, especially since he was just going to hang out with Brendon at the park. (Maybe she should be worried. Brendon was a bit of a trouble maker.)

 

He jumped a little when he felt his phone begin to vibrate, and he pulled it out to see that Brendon had texted him:  _ im ready, come pick me up bitch _

 

Josh huffed a laugh and replied an affirmative, stuffing his phone back in his pocket as he grabbed the keys for the van. “I’m going out now, I’ll be back later!” He called out, hurrying out before his mom could warn him some more. 

 

He sighed happily as he closed the door, hopping into the van outside. He was in the middle of putting on his seatbelt (safety first, everyone!) after turning on the car when the radio turned on. 

 

Maybe ‘turned on’ was a bit too calm of a term. ‘Absolutely blasted’ was probably better. Josh made an instinctual screech as the heavy metal began to play, far louder than he deemed safe for his ears and in the process of turning down the radio he managed to get two scrapes from the seat belt, a bruise from smacking his elbow against the door, and the beginnings of a headache. He groaned. 

 

After a moment for recovery, he pulled out of the driveway, ignoring his mom peeking out of the house confusedly. 

 

\--

 

“Man, we haven’t been to this park in ages,” Brendon said wistfully, immediately running to one of the older, larger trees. It was beginning to be evening; the air was cooling off, but there was still plenty of light to see by. 

 

“Yeah,” Josh said, slowly following after Brendon. He felt something tickle his hair, and absentmindedly ran his fingers through it, finding a leaf. He shrugged and tossed it to the side, sitting down next to Brendon. 

 

The two talked for a while, complaining about school (they’d only been in for like, two weeks, how could the teachers be so heavy on the workload), talking about life, idly talking about music. The usual topics. Neither of the two boys really had what you would call a ‘best friend’, unless you called Mark Josh’s best friend. However, they got along well enough, and it was fun to complain about school to someone. 

 

“Y’know that new kid, Dal-- Woah, Josh, did you get attacked by a tree?”

 

Josh glanced over at Brendon in confusion, almost laughing at how incredulous he looked at the moment, before running his fingers through his hair again. What he found was not very pleasant. 

 

“Holy shit, why are there so many leaves in my hair,” Josh groaned, and spent a good five minutes brushing everything out of his hair. He ignored Brendon’s giggles the entire time. “So, anyway,” Josh said, sitting back up as normal and glancing over at Brendon. “What about Dallon?”

 

Brendon flushed slightly, and shrugged. “He seems cool. He’s in my math class, and we get along pretty well,” Brendon murmured, and almost as if to change the subject (even though he brought it up in the first place) he turned the attention back on Josh. “Dude, you have more leaves in your hair,” He said, reaching over to pull one out. “How you manage this, I--” 

 

Josh froze as Brendon let out an ungodly screech, pulling his hand back as if he’d touched acid. He subconsciously noted that there was a thump from behind him, too, as if someone had fallen on their butt. 

 

“I swear to fucking god I touched someone’s hand for a second oh holy shit Josh what the fuck--” Brendon continued muttering to himself, and needless to say, the two of them left very shortly after, both of them silently agreeing to never speak of that again. 

 

As they hopped back in the van, Josh turned the ignition and began to buckle up, and this time two ungodly screeches were heard as heavy metal began to blare through the speakers. Josh ignored the unhappy looks from a group of moms in the park.

 

_____

  
  


“...Honey, I know I’ve done this before, but I swear this wasn’t me.” 

 

“Yeah, okay, mom,” 

 

Josh huffed angrily, slowly inspecting his hoodie. 

 

There had to have been over a hundred little bells on this thing. 

 

All sewn quite well onto the sleeves and hem, and even a couple on the pockets. A large one (like, fist sized) on the top of the hood. 

 

All very loud. 

 

On his favourite hoodie. 

 

“Also, I put them on a christmas sweater, not your favourite hoodie,” His mom added, looking at the hoodie curiously. “Maybe Mark did it?”

 

Josh shook his head, sighed, and set to work removing the bells. 

 

About five bells and as many minutes in, his mom called him down to help with chores. He sighed, set it down, and decided he would finish fixing his hoodie later. 

 

When he came back up, it was bell-free. 

 

______

  
  


From Josh: hey debs, did you finish the math homework?

 

From Debby: No, sorry! I’ll probably get it done later. 

 

From Josh: later. sure.  

 

From Debby: Just because you never finish your homework doesn’t mean I dont!

 

From Josh: if you say so. brb

 

From Debby: k

 

Josh sighed, setting his phone down and stretching a little bit. This homework was wearing him out. 

 

This called for a snack. 

 

So Josh didn’t think anything of it when his phone was just slightly moved from where he sat it when he returned with a red bull and some doritos. He figured he had just remembered incorrectly, and situated himself back on his bed, flopping down and shoving a dorito in his mouth. 

 

From Josh: k im back

 

Or at least, that’s what Josh meant to send. What really got sent was:

 

From Josh: k portuguese back

 

Unfortunately, he didn’t notice this until Debby replied.

 

From Debby: Um, Josh, what?

 

From Josh: what the hell that is not what I meant to say (which sent as, “what teh heaven that arnold not what portu meant”)

 

From Debby: Um.

 

Josh groaned and called Debby. 

 

“Josh,”

 

“Someone put weird shortcuts in my phone for texting,” Josh said.

 

“...You have fun figuring that out.”

 

“Well, I should be able to just reset it…”

 

However, when he reset the shortcuts, they simply appeared back as they were before the reset, only perhaps with more odd shortcuts. 

 

Josh groaned and threw his phone to the side. He’d figure it out later. 

 

(a few days and much frustration later, the shortcuts mysteriously disappeared.)

 

_____

 

“Mom, why are there bananas all over my room?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i believe that last one is self explanatory

**Author's Note:**

> I know the situation is weird. I just wanted an excuse to have Tyler running around and stealing Josh's pencils and shit.


End file.
